Publication: Epidemic Impacts of a Community Empowerment Intervention for HIV Prevention among Female Sex Workers in Generalized and Concentrated Epidemics
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2014-02-06
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2015-12-03
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Sex workers have endured a high burden of HIV infection in and across HIV epidemics. A comprehensive, community empowerment-based HIV prevention intervention emphasizes sex worker organization and mobilization to address HIV risk and often includes community-led peer education, condom distribution, and other activities. Meta-analysis of such interventions suggests a potential 51% reduction in inconsistent condom use. Mathematical modeling exercises provide theoretical insight into potential impacts of the intervention on HIV incidence and burden in settings where interventions have not yet been implemented. We used a deterministic model, Goals, to project the impact on HIV infections when the community empowerment interventions were scaled up among female sex workers in Kenya, Thailand, Brazil, and Ukraine.
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Publication The Global HIV Epidemics among Sex Workers(2013-01)Since the beginning of the epidemic sex workers have experienced a heightened burden of HIV across settings, despite their higher levels of HIV protective behaviors (UNAIDS, 2009). Unfairly, sex workers have often been framed as 'vectors of disease' and 'core transmitters' rather than workers and human beings with rights in terms of HIV prevention and beyond. By gaining a deeper understanding of the epidemiologic and broader policy and social context within which sex work is set one begins to quickly gain a sense of the complex backdrop for increased risk to HIV among sex workers. This backdrop includes the critical role of stigma, discrimination and violence faced by sex workers, as well as, the importance of community empowerment and mobilization among sex workers to address these regressive forces. 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