HIVTools
Based in the Health Policy Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the group carries out research and training in modelling and economic analysis. Group members are specialists in economics, mathematics, epidemiology, behavioural science and policy analysis.
Focusses on addressing policy-oriented research questions in collaboration with research partners. Research focuses on:
- integrated and intersectoral initiatives - including those working with injecting drug users (IDUs), youth, workplace, and Tuberculosis/HIV
- new technologies: diagnostics, antiretrovirals, microbicides
- HIV prevention, care and treatment interventions
- violence and HIV: violence against women
Policy and programming applications of the research include:
- national planning and financing, resource allocation and replication scaling up
- intervention monitoring and evaluation
- priority-setting
- standardisation of methodologies
- tools for decision-making
The HIVTools toolkit covers an expanding range of interventions including condom promotion, STD control, blood safety, needle exchange and the use of microbicides, as well as interventions for specific vulnerable population groups (injecting drug users, sex workers and adolescents). The toolkit has been field-tested in Bangladesh, Belarus, Cameroon, Ukraine, South Africa and Zambia.
