The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #43987

Avni Amin, PhD, Senior Program Associate, Center for Health and Gender Equity, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 910, Takoma Park, MD 20912, 301-270-1182, aamin@genderhealth.org and Jodi Jacobson, BA, Executive Director, Center for Health and Gender Equity, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 910, Takoma Park, MD 20912.

With women accounting for 25% of the 3.86 million individuals living with HIV in India, there is an urgent need for gender-sensitive STI/HIV prevention strategies. We analyze India’s National AIDS Control Program (NACP) by drawing upon gender-sensitive prevention programs from other countries. We propose a framework for integrating gender and rights based strategies in the national program.

We interviewed stakeholders engaged in HIV prevention in India, and analyzed the content of the national and donor program documents. We also reviewed innovative projects from India, South Africa and Brazil.

The NACP is a vertical program, with objectives that are incongruent to those of the reproductive/child health (RCH), and family planning (FP) programs. It focuses on individual behavior change strategies for high-risk groups. Findings from innovative programs show that women are enabled to protect themselves when they are empowered to negotiate condom use through collective organization and access to integrated reproductive health, legal and social services; and behavior change and communication strategies address gender norms.

We advocate that the NACP shifts the discourse from “high-risk groups” to “vulnerabilities”, as the former excludes an increasing number of at-risk women in primary partnerships; changes from a “disease control” to a “sexual and reproductive health” approach to allow room for social interventions; articulates HIV prevention objectives in terms of “participatory processes” as much as “outcomes”; and addresses women’s simultaneous need for protection from unwanted pregnancy and infection by integrating objectives of the vertical programs (NACP, RCH and FP), and introducing dual protection strategies and the female condom.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the session, participants will be able to conceptualize and analyze HIV prevention policies from a gender and rights perspective, and develop gender-sensitive strategies that address women's unique vulnerabilities to HIV infection.

Keywords: Gender, HIV Interventions

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.