Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE): Overview of the Tool Kit and the Method It Supports
ms-19-173.pdf
—
PDF document,
1,684 kB (1,725,140 bytes)
Author(s): MEASURE Evaluation
Year: 2019
Abstract:This tool kit is a comprehensive resource for the design and implementation of the Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) method. MEASURE Evaluation—a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—developed the method to increase local capacity to understand the drivers of local HIV epidemics, identify gaps in services among those most likely to acquire and transmit HIV, and provide evidence to support tailored interventions to reduce HIV transmission. The full PLACE collection is available at https://www.measureevaluation.org/place.
MEASURE Evaluation published an implementation manual in 2005. Since then, the scope of the PLACE method has been broadened in response to new tools in testing for HIV and sexually transmitted infections, capabilities for geospatial analysis technologies, electronic data collection, and an increased urgency to find people who are HIV-positive—particularly key populations and other vulnerable people who may be at increased risk of transmitting the virus to others if not successfully engaged in treatment.
Thus, the time is right for a 2019 update of the 2005 PLACE manual and tool kit to guide today’s implementation according to best practices long established and new opportunities. Today’s manual takes PLACE’s contribution to HIV epidemic response even further. In addition to providing maps of places to reach people who are at risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV, the method provides data for estimating the size of those populations, for estimating HIV prevention and adherence to treatment, and for estimating standard biobehavioral surveillance indicators.
The new PLACE manual offers guidance on linking to care participants in a PLACE study who test positive for HIV. The new manual also has an evidence-informed strategy for ethical implementation of the protocol, including a preliminary readiness assessment that gauges protocol safety and provides guidance on the conditions under which the study should not be implemented. The new tool kit includes a sample protocol that can be adapted for use in any setting, a description of important protocol decisions, and a detailed implementation guide.
This manual is also available in Word.
