HIV/AIDS

Will We Achieve Universal Access to HIV/AIDS Services with the Health Workforce We Have: a Snapshot from Five Countries

Recognizing the global human resources for health (HRH) shortage, the Alliance commissioned a task force to examine the HRH implications of scaling up to reach the Millennium Development Goal 6 of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. This report shares the results from this work and describes critical interventions to ensure there are sufficient HRH to support the scale up toward universal access. [from summary]

Essential Core Competencies Related to HIV and AIDS are Critically Needed in Nursing

This article outlines the need for establishing contextually appropriate competencies in HIV and AIDS nursing as a fundamental step toward ensuring success in addressing the pandemic in Southern Africa.

Decentralization of the Provision of Health Services to People Living with HIV/AIDS in Rural China: the Case of Three Counties

This study assesses the new decentralized service provision system for people living with HIV/AIDS in rural populations in China. [from abstract]

Strengthening Health Systems by Engaging the Private Health Sector: Promising HIV/AIDS Partnerships

While purely private sector initiatives can also help to achieve HIV/AIDS objectives, this paper focuses on how public-private engagement can more sustainably contribute to health systems strengthening. [from introduction]

Research Training Needs in Peruvian National TB/HIV Programs

This article sought to systematically assess the research training needs of health care professionals working at Peruvian governmental institutions leading HIV and tuberculosis control and among senior stakeholders in the field. [from abstract]

Traditional Birth Attendants Lack Basic Information on HIV and Safe Delivery Practices in Rural Mysore, India

There is little research on HIV awareness and practices of traditional birth attendants (TBA) in India. This study investigated knowledge and attitudes among rural TBA in Karnataka as part of a project examining how traditional birth attendants could be integrated into prevention-of-mother-to-child transmission of HIV programs in India. [from abstract]

Private Sector Involvement in HIV Service Provision

This technical brief describes effective or promising practices that leverage the private health care sector in developing countries, taking advantage of existing infrastructure, financial resources, and expertise to better integrate HIV services and reduce the burden on public health facilities. [from introduction]

Mobile Learning for HIV/AIDS Healthcare Worker Training in Resource-Limited Settings

This article presents an innovative approach to healthcare worker (HCW) training using mobile phones as a personal learning environment. Twenty physicians used individual Smartphones in urban and peri-urban HIV/AIDS clinics in Peru, where almost 70% of the nations HIV patients in need of treatment. [adapted from abstract]

Promising Practices to Build Human Resources Capacity in HIV Strategic Information

The aim of this document is to identify and document promising practices to plan, develop and support national human resources in HIV related strategic information/monitoring and evaluation (M&E). This document adds to recent global M&E system strengthening guidance by compiling examples of promising approaches from a wide range of countries, and is intended for use in the creation of country plans to strengthen the workforce to support a fully functional, national M&E system to ensure strategic information for HIV/AIDS programming. [adapted from summary]

Family Planning and HIV Services Toolkit

This toolkit is your one-stop source for evidence-based knowledge and promising practices to support the successful integration of family planning (FP) and HIV services. It summarizes the latest evidence and provides links to guidelines and tools to help you plan, manage, deliver, evaluate, and support integrated services. [adapted from publisher]

Traditional Healers as Caregivers to HIV/AIDS Clients and Other Terminally Challenged Persons in Kanye Community Home-Based Care Programme (CHBC), Botswana

This article aims at evaluating the traditional healers’ contribution as providers of care to HIV/AIDS patients and other chronically ill persons. [from abstract]

Utilization of HIV-Related Services from the Private Health Sector: A Multi-Country Analysis

This study uses data from the Demographic and Health Surveys and AIDS Indicators Surveys from 12 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean to explore use of HIV testing and sexually transimitted infections care from the private for-profit sector, and its association with household wealth status. [adapted from abstract]

Challenges Facing the Tanzanian Health Workforce in the Era of HIV/AIDS

The need for documenting how the AIDS epidemic is affecting the health care personnel has long been recognized. In the specific case of Tanzania which already has a Health Sector HIV/AIDS Strategy it is imperative to have information on how the health system and the health personnel who are expected to spearhead the implementation of that strategy are being affected. This can guide preventive and remedial measures to ensure that the capacity of the system and its personnel for the effective implementation of the Strategy is not unduly compromised. [from author]

Impact of HIV Scale-Up on the Role of Nurses in South Africa: Time for a New Approach

HIV scale-up has triggered innovations in nurse training, task shifting, retention, and scope of practice that need not remain HIV specific. Lessons learned in the context of HIV have the potential to enhance nursing practice and human resources for health more generally, strengthening South Africa’s health systems and improving access to effective health services. [from abstract]

Predicting Intention to Treat HIV-Infected Patients among Tanzanian and Sudanese Medical and Dental Students Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour: a Cross Sectional Study

The HIV epidemic poses significant challenges to the low income countries in sub Saharan Africa, affecting the attrition rate among health care workers, their level of motivation, and absenteeism from work. This study aimed to predict the intention to provide surgical treatment to HIV infected patients among medical- and dental students in Tanzania and Sudan using an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. [from abstract]

AIDS Treatment and the Health Workforce Crisis in Africa: Task Shifting and Quality of Care in Mozambique

This presentation dicusses the import of task shifting to providing health care and AIDS treatment programs to low-resource countries in Africa using Mozambique as an example.

Traditional Healers in Preventing HIV/AIDS: Roles and Scopes

This paper presents the roles of traditional healers in HIV/AIDS prevention and scopes for including them in the national AIDS prevention and control program.

Alleviating the Burden of Responsibility: Men as Providers of Community-Based HIV/AIDS Care and Support in Lesotho

In Lesotho, as in many other countries, the HIV and AIDS care burden falls on the shoulders of women and girls in unpaid, invisible household and community work. This gender inequity in HRH needs to be addressed to ensure fair and sustainable responses to the need for home and community-based HIV/AIDS care and support. The Capacity Project addressed these issues through a study of men as providers of HIV/AIDS care and support. [from author]

Bridging the Gaps: Improving Decentralized HIV Services in Panama

This version of Voices reveals how hospital staff are using the Project’s performance improvement approach to strengthen comprehensive HIV care. [adapted from author]

Integrating Family Planning and HIV Services Improves Service Quality

This study tested the feasibility, acceptability, and cost of two models for integrating HIV prevention services, including counseling and testing, within established family planning programs, and evaluated their quality against the standard practice. [from author]

Assessing the Role of the Private Health Sector in HIV/AIDS Service Delivery in Ethiopia

This study seeks to assess the role of private health facilities and pharmacies in HIV/AIDS service delivery in Ethiopia, and specifically to identify factors that could enable greater involvement of this sector in addressing the HIV epidemic.

Increasing Leadership Capacity for HIV/AIDS Programs by Strengthening Public Health Epidemiology and Management Training in Zimbabwe

This paper describes a programme in Zimbabwe aimed at responding more effectively to the HIV/AIDS epidemic by reinforcing a critical competence-based training institution and producing public health leaders. [adapted from abstract]

Impact of the AIDS Pandemic on Health Services in Africa: Evidence from Demographic and Health Surveys

This paper documents the impact of the AIDS crisis on non-AIDS related health services in fourteen sub-Saharan African countries. [from introduction]

Impact of HIV/AIDS on Human Resources for Health in Tanzania

This study sought to assess the impact of HIV/AIDS on the human resources in the health sector in Tanzania, to provide up to date and specific data on the needs and the supply of human resources in the health sector, and to inform the formulation of strategies for strengthening human resources in the health sector. [from summary]

Community Health Workers and Home-Based Care Programs for HIV Clients

This paper discusses the role and impact of community health workers in Nyanza Province, Kenya, in response to the growing demands the HIV epidemic has placed on the people and communities in this region. [adapted from abstract]

Surgical Task Shifting in Sub-Saharan Africa

One of the main barriers to surgical care in resource-limited settings is the shortage of trained health workers. A number of approaches are being employed to overcome this shortage including the mobilization of non-physician clinicians to perform surgical and anesthetic tasks. This paper discusses some of the experiences of surgical task shifting to date, and outlines lessons from task shifting in the delivery of HIV/AIDS care in sub-Saharan Africa. [adapted from abstract]

Burnout and Use of HIV Services Among Health Care Workers in Lusaka District, Zambia: a Cross-Sectional Study

Well-documented shortages of health care workers in sub-Saharan Africa are exacerbated by the increased human resource demands of rapidly expanding HIV care and treatment programmes. The successful continuation of existing programmes is threatened by health care worker burnout and HIV-related illness. This article details the results of a study conducted among health providers in the Lusaka public health sector. [adapted from abstract]

Operations Manual for Delivery of HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment at Primary Health Centers in High-Prevalence, Resource-Constrained Settings

The operations manual provides guidance on planning and delivering HIV prevention, care, and treatment services at health centres in countries with high HIV prevalence. It provides an operational framework to ensure that HIV services can be provided in an integrated, efficient and quality-assured manner. [from introduction]

Men and Care in the Context of HIV and AIDS: Structure, Political Will and Greater Male Involvement

AIDS is a long and debilitating illness that renders patients unable to fend for themselves. In wealthy countries, health systems provide much of the necessary care; in the developing world, however, the burden is taken up by family and community members, a large majority of whom are women. This paper outlines some of the causes of this imbalance and makes recommendations for governments as they attempt to address the problem. [adapted from introduction]

Caring from Within: Key Findings and Policy Recommendations on Home-Based Care in Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, as in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, home-based care (HBC) plays a vital role in the response to HIV as overwhelmed public health and welfare systems fail to cope with the demands of the epidemic. This document details a project designed to contribute to better understanding and evidence-based decision-making in the implementation of HBC interventions in Zimbabwe and beyond. [adapted from executive summary]