Behavioural Surveillance Surveys - The Wisdom of Whores

To be counted the numerator for this
indicator, a respondent must correctly reject
both misconceptions, and must know that a
healthy-looking person can transmit AIDS.
The denominator is all respondents, including
those who have not heard of AIDS. For
program purposes, the indicator should be
disaggregated by misconception, and the
percentage believing that a healthy-looking
person cannot transmit HIV should also be
reported separately.
Strengths and limitations
This indicator gives a good picture of the
level of false beliefs that may impede people’s
determination to act on correct knowledge.
When the data are disaggregated, they provide
invaluable information for program managers
planning future IEC campaigns, telling them
which misconceptions must be attacked, and
in which sub-populations.
A word of caution is in order, however.
There is always a danger that the inclusion
of misconceptions in a questionnaire actually
increases their credibility. Preparatory research
should be sure to establish commonly-held
misconceptions (rather than run the risk of
promoting new ones), and the questionnaire
should make very clear that some of the
statements in the sequence are true while
others are false.
B EHAV I OR A L S U R V EI L L A NC E SURV EY S CHAPTER 9
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