Oral

A major current concern in the prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the western world including the United States is our inability to bring about significant declines in STI and HIV incidence and prevalence rates. Effective means to prevent transmission are available and considerable, though insufficient resources are invested in STI and HIV prevention; however, the desired outcomes – significant declines in incidence and prevalence rates in the population – continue to evade us. The critical component of prevention that needs further attention is the scale and pattern of delivery of prevention services. Prevention programs need to plan, implement and carefully monitor and continuously adjust the delivery of their prevention services. Public health scientists need to develop and disseminate the scientific guidance prevention programs need in the planning, implementation, monitoring and adjustment of their services. This session is a follow-up to a symposium held during the 136th Annual APHA Meeting in 2008, in which the new “Program Science Initiative” was announced to APHA participants for the first time. The session will focus on issues of required, achievable and achieved coverage; scale up; geospatial mapping of morbidity and services; intervention fidelity and intervention adaptation. The session will also include a presentation of a domestic case study – an example of program –science at its best.

Session Objectives: 1. (Participants will be able to) Calculate required and achievable coverage for distinct target group – intervention combinations. 2. (Participants will be able to) Identify principles of spatial and temporal mapping. 3. (Participants will be able to) Differentiate between intervention components that can be adopted and those for which fidelity is essential.