ISSUES AND APPROACHES TO EVALUATING HIV OUTREACH INTERVENTIONS

The lack of a medical cure or preventive vaccine for HIV calls for int erventions that reduce the occurrence of the behaviors known to be ass ociated with infection. The development of effective interventions req uires rigorous evaluations that, to date, have been noticeably lacking in the field. In particular, assessments of HIV prevention efforts ha ve considered interventions as ''black boxes,'' with little attention to the actual services delivered. In this paper, issues related to eva luating outreach interventions are presented and an evaluation strateg y to measure the delivery of outreach services, using both quantitativ e and qualitative techniques, is recommended.