Purpose of This Module

This module discusses key elements of the prevention of STI/HIV transmission, including information about behavior change, risk and vulnerability, risk reduction, essential elements of counseling, and safer-sex practices.

Interventions and Strategies for Prevention

Many approaches to STI and HIV prevention have been used to varying degrees of success. The general consensus, however, is that successful STI/HIV prevention needs to go beyond information and awareness raising to directly address behavior change.

A variety of related and overlapping behavior change theories and paradigms have been used to inform the development of prevention programs and interventions. In general, they recognize the complexity of human behavior and the myriad psychological, sociocultural, and structural factors that play a role. More recently, increased attention has been given to the idea of looking beyond individual behaviors to the contextual factors (conditions) that make people vulnerable to STI/HIV infection and influence behavior. These include, for example, social norms, gender inequalities, and poverty.

It is important to focus HIV-prevention interventions on high-risk situations, including those individuals most likely to perpetuate the epidemic (e.g., those with multiple partners, injection drug users, sex workers). It is also important that STI/HIV-prevention interventions be implemented in a variety of settings to reach a broad audience. Such settings include communities, schools, workplaces, health care facilities, social gathering places, and places where sex is sold or traded. Family planning and reproductive health services may be important locations for reaching women since they are often the only contact that many women have with the health care system, particularly in developing countries.

STI diagnosis and treatment as a strategy for HIV prevention

Since the presence of other STIs can increase susceptibility to HIV infection, as well as hasten the development of AIDS, efforts to diagnose and treat curable STIs have become a major strategy in combating the HIV epidemic. Although ulcerative STIs (e.g., syphilis, herpes) can most readily facilitate HIV transmission, other STIs have been shown to do so as well. STI/HIV diagnosis and treatment efforts include counseling to ensure proper treatment and strategies to notify partners for treatment.

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