Behavioural Surveillance Surveys - The Wisdom of Whores

Adult Indicator 2
No incorrect beliefs about
AIDS transmission
Definition
Numerator :
Number of male/female
respondents who in response
to prompted questions correctly
reject the two most
common local misconceptions
about AIDS transmission or
prevention, and who know
that a healthy-looking person
can transmit AIDS.
Denominator : Total number of male/female
respondents surveyed.
Measurement tools
Adult questionnaire
Q904, Q907, Q909
(questions depend
on context)
What it measures
Many of the people who know that
condoms protect against AIDS also believe
that AIDS can be contracted from a mosquito
bite or other uncontrollable event. Why bother
to reduce the pleasure of sex, they reason,
if they might in any case be infected by
something as random as a mosquito bite ?
At high levels of HIV-related awareness,
a reduction in misconceptions that act as a
disincentive to behavior change may actually
be a better reflection of the success of an IEC
campaign than an incremental shift in
already high levels of “correct” knowledge.
This indicator measures progress made in
reducing misconceptions.
How to measure it
In a series of prompted questions,
respondents are given correct and incorrect
statements about AIDS transmission and
prevention. Responses to the correct statements
about prevention are used to calculate Adult
Indicator 1. Responses to a question about
infection status in healthy-looking people and
two incorrect statements about transmission
or prevention are used to calculate this indicator.
The incorrect statements will vary to reflect
the misconceptions most common in the local
context. Very often these will include the
belief that AIDS can be spread through an
insect bite or through kissing. Sometimes they
will include beliefs about prevention or cure,
such as AIDS being preventable by eating
certain types of food or herbs, or by performing
certain rituals after sex. One question will
always center on knowledge of the “healthy
carrier” concept, that is, knowledge that a
person may contract HIV by having unprotected
sex with an apparently healthy person.
The exact wording may vary locally.
For example, in some areas “fat” may be
synonymous with “healthy” in this context and
may better reflect people’s misunderstanding
of who constitutes a “safe” partner.
The local misconceptions should be identified
shortly before a survey takes place. They
may vary over time within the same country.
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C H A PTER 9 B EHAV I OR A L S U R V EI L L A NC E S U R V EY S