Scaling Up HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing in Africa: What Can Evaluation Studies Tell Us About Potential Prevention Impacts?

Evaluation Review, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 331-357, August 2005

Posted: 25 Aug 2005 Last revised: 1 Jun 2009

Abstract

Although there is a widespread belief that scaling up HIV voluntary testing and counseling (VCT) programs in Africa will have large prevention benefits through reductions in risk behaviors, these claims are difficult to establish from existing evaluations of VCT. Considerations from behavioral models and the available data suggest that as VCT coverage expands marginal program effects are likely to decline due to changes in the degree of client selectivity, and that potential uptake among those at highest risk is uncertain. The paper also assesses two other common perceptions about VCT in Africa: that a policy of promoting couples-oriented VCT would be more successful than one emphasizing individual testing, and that VCT demand and prevention impacts will be enhanced where scaling up is accompanied by the provision of anti-retroviral drugs.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, voluntary counseling and testing, selectivity models, program

Suggested Citation

Glick, Peter, Scaling Up HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing in Africa: What Can Evaluation Studies Tell Us About Potential Prevention Impacts?. Evaluation Review, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 331-357, August 2005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=780590

Peter Glick (Contact Author)

RAND Corporation ( email )

1200 South Hayes Street
Arlington, VA 22202
United States

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