Details Details Details

So it’s been about a week, and I’ve done a lot of work since then. Here are some more details on the study:

In order to decrease the prevalence and the further spread of HIV/AIDS in Pune, it is important to educate people on how it is transmitted and therefore awareness about HIV/AIDS is a major prevention strategy to contracting this virus and disease that cannot be cured. Hence, it is essential to evaluate the current level of awareness about HIV/AIDS and its preventive measures among those of high risk groups, such as Pune slum dwellers, so that we can create an effective awareness program. Although awareness programs can be effective in reducing the spread of HIV, it can also be effective in reducing the associated stigma and discrimination since education about HIV reduces the fear surrounding HIV/AIDS.
One of the major ways that HIV is transmitted is mother to child transmission during pregnancy, labor, delivery and breastfeeding. Without any care, HIV+ women have a 15% to 30% chance of passing the virus to their infants during pregnancy, labor, or delivery. Breastfeeding (not exclusive during the first 6 months) will transmit HIV to another 10% to 20% of infants. In other words, 3 to 6 babies out of 20 births by HIV+ women, would be born infected, and another 2 to 4 would be infected if breastfed (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Of Public Health, 2007)
Women planning to be pregnant as well as new mothers must be informed about this type of transmission especially since ARV medications, cesarean-section delivery, and avoidance of breastfeeding can reduce MTCT risk. Again, it is important to find out how many of these women in the slums and to what extent they know about mother to child transmission in order to assess the stigma and discrimination concerning HIV+ pregnant women in the slums so that an effective awareness program can be developed.

Introduction to the DISHA/SureStart (DSS)

Background Information and goals of the project:
Awareness about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention strategies decreases the fear surrounding HIV/AIDS and therefore decreases the associated stigma and discrimination
Many women believe that babies born to HIV+ women will be infected, or that HIV+ women are too sick to have healthy pregnancies and give birth to healthy children.
It’s been shown that HIV can be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy, labor, delivery and breastfeeding. Without any care, HIV+ women have a 15% to 30% chance of passing the virus to their infants during pregnancy, labor, or delivery. Breastfeeding (not exclusive during the first 6 months) will transmit HIV to another 10% to 20% of infants. (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Of Public Health, 2007)
However, if we can educate them about mother to child transmission and ways to prevent it by having the mother and/or the child take ARV medications, getting a cesarean section delivery, and avoiding breastfeeding, the baby can be HIV- and healthy
The goal of this project is to create an effective awareness program for the women in the slums in relation to mother to child transmission (MTCT), but we first need to find out what they already know about HIV/AIDS and how they feel about issues concerning HIV+ women having children
· Objectives
o To conduct a knowledge assessment about HIV/AIDS, the preventive measures, and its related stigma and discrimination among women living in the Tadiwala Rd. slum
o To examine the level of misconceptions about modes of transmission of HIV/AIDS and its related stigma and discrimination specifically in relation to mother to child transmission among those with known and unknown HIV status
o The results of this study will be used to develop an awareness program.
Methods:
The target population
100 women from the Tadiwala Rd. slum
Preference to women who plan to become pregnant, who are currently pregnant and mothers were recently pregnant (i.e. have young children)
DISHA and SureStart community health workers will interview one woman a day for about 10 days using interview questions that have already been prepared
The interview
This interview is more of a discussion with the respondent, not a survey or a questionnaire, so the client should feel comfortable conversing with the interviewer
Every interview will begin with the “Pre-Interview” packet and will then proceed to another interview packet, either the “HIV-/unknown status” or the “HIV+” packet
Using DISHA resources, we will know the HIV status of some of the clients
If the HIV status is known, then the corresponding packet will be used
If the HIV status of the client is unknown, then the “HIV-/unknown status” interview packet is used

We had a training session yesterday, where I introduced the project, and went over the interviews with the 20 DISHA/SureStart community health workers so that they could practice. They were split into teams of 2 and conducted mock interviews. Currently, the interviews are being translated from English to Marathi and hopefully we can start this Friday or next week. I’ll try and attach the interview documents when I can.