Behavioural Surveillance Surveys - The Wisdom of Whores

This indicator gives some idea of the
increasing coverage of services that meet
people’s demand for testing. It is not, however,
limited to voluntary testing and counseling
services staffed by trained counselors. It may
therefore include tests requested from private
doctors who do not necessarily provide any
counseling.
The “ever tested” measure is less sensitive
to recent trends in test-seeking behavior than a
time-bound measure such as “tested in the last
12 months”. If voluntary counseling and
testing services are widely available and
actively promoted within a sub-population,
this cumulative measure may eventually reach
quite high levels. At this stage, the indicator
may be time-limited to respondents who have
requested an HIV test and received the results
in the last 12 months. Note that in highprevalence
populations with good coverage
of testing services, trends in the time-bound
indicator can be expected to be affected by
the fact that people who have tested HIV
positive will not return for further testing in
future years.
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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