Using machine learning and qualitative interviews to design a five-question survey module for women's agency.

Open-ended interview questions elicit rich information about people's lives, but in large-scale surveys, social scientists often need to measure complex concepts using only a few close-ended questions. We propose a new method to design a short survey measure for such cases by combining mixed-methods data collection and machine learning. We identify the best survey questions based on how well they predict a benchmark measure of the concept derived from qualitative interviews.

Prioritizing and Funding Nepal's Multisector Nutrition Plan.

Background: Nepal has a long tradition of designing good multisectoral nutrition policy. However, success of policy implementation has varied. More evidence on how to successfully carry out multisector nutrition policy is needed.

Client-perpetrated and husband-perpetrated violence among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India: HIV/STI risk across personal and work contexts.

Objectives: This study examines violence experienced in work and personal contexts and relation to HIV risk factors in these contexts among female sex workers (FSW) in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Methods: FSW at least 18 years of age (n=2335) were recruited through three rounds of respondent-driven sampling between 2006 and 2010 for a survey on HIV risk. Using crude and adjusted logistic regression models, any sexual/physical violence (last 6 months) perpetrated by clients and husbands were separately assessed in association with accepting more money for sex without a condom (last 30 days), consistent condom use with clients and husbands (last 30 days), and sexually transmitted infection (STI) symptoms (last 6 months).

Non-barrier contraceptive use and relation to condom use behaviour by partner type among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Objective: The study assessed non-barrier contraceptive use among female sex workers (FSW) in Andhra Pradesh, India and relation to inconsistent condom use among commercial and non-commercial male sexual partners.

Methods: FSW at least 18 years of age (n=2338) were recruited through respondent-driven sampling for an HIV risk survey. Analysis was restricted to women of childbearing age (n=2197).

Factors Influencing the Delivery of HIV-Related Services to Severely Mentally Ill Individuals: The Provider's Perspective.

Background: Individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI) are disproportionately vulnerable to HIV infection but are not consistently engaged in HIV-related services.

Objective: To understand factors influencing implementation of HIV-related services to individuals with SMI, we conducted a series of focus groups with multidisciplinary clinicians and staff serving individuals with SMI in outpatient, emergency, acute inpatient, and chronic inpatient levels of care.

Method: Six focus groups with 30 participants were conducted, audiotaped, and transcribed.

Sex workers in HIV prevention: From Social Change Agents to Peer Educators.

We utilised a comparative ethnographic approach to study the implementation of a community mobilisation intervention addressing HIV risk among female sex workers (FSWs) in India, as implemented first by an non-governmental organisation and after oversight of the intervention was transitioned to the government. We demonstrate that the work of peer outreach workers changed from Social Change Agents within a community-led structural intervention (CLSI) to Peer Educators within a targeted intervention (TI). In the CLSI approach, built on the assumption that FSW risk for HIV is rooted in power inequality and structural vulnerability, peer outreach workers mobilised their peers through community-based organisations to address underlying conditions of inequality and vulnerability.

Motherhood and HIV risk among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India: the need to consider women's life contexts.

This study examines whether the challenges of motherhood among female sex workers (FSW) are linked with vulnerability to sexual risk factors for HIV. FSW at least 18 years of age (n = 850) were recruited through respondent driven sampling for a survey on HIV risk in the Rajahmundry area of Andhra Pradesh, India. Logistic regression models adjusted for demographic characteristics were used to assess the relation between reported caretaking challenges and sexual risk indicators for HIV.

Structural stigma, sex work and HIV: contradictions and lessons learnt from a community-led structural intervention in southern India.

Background: Recent theorisation has pushed stigma research in new directions, arguing for a need to challenge the unequal power relations that impact groups most at risk for HIV-related stigma rather than locate stigma in the individual. Such a conceptualisation resonates with the growing emphasis on structural interventions for HIV prevention that attempt to alter the social context of risk.

Methods: The paper predominantly relies on longitudinal interviews conducted three times over a 2-year period with sex workers with varying degrees of involvement with the non-governmental organisation (NGO) and community-based organisation.

Migration/mobility and risk factors for HIV among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India: implications for HIV prevention.

We examined the relation between high mobility/migration (sex work in three or more villages/towns within the past year) and HIV risk factors among a sample of female sex workers (FSWs) in Andhra Pradesh, India. We recruited FSWs aged ≥18 years (n = 673) through respondent-driven sampling for a survey on HIV risk. Adjusted logistic and linear regression models assessed high mobility in relation to sexual and physical victimization, sexually transmitted infection (STI) symptoms and treatment, condom use and negotiation, number and/or types of sex trades, number of clients and number of days worked.

Trends in condom use among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India: the impact of a community mobilisation intervention.

Background: Community mobilisation interventions for HIV prevention among female sex workers (FSWs) aim to organise FSWs for collective action and challenge the structures of power that underlie HIV risk. Assessing intervention impact is challenging because the importance of direct individual exposure to intervention components may decrease over time as change occurs at social-normative, policy and other structural levels. In this paper, the authors examine changes over time in consistent condom use among FSWs in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, the location of a long-standing community mobilisation intervention.

The role of housing in determining HIV risk among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India: considering women's life contexts.

Recent research on HIV prevention, regardless of the population, has increasingly recognized the relevance of contextual factors in determining HIV risk. Investigating such factors among female sex workers (FSW) is especially relevant in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where HIV rates are among the highest across Indian states and where HIV has largely affected FSW. Stable housing is a particular contextual challenge experienced by female sex workers in this region (as well as elsewhere); however, local studies have not examined the impact of this issue on HIV risk.

Challenging the stigmatization of female sex workers through a community-led structural intervention: learning from a case study of a female sex worker intervention in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Structural interventions represent a potentially powerful approach to HIV prevention among female sex workers (FSW) that focus on changing the social context of risk rather than individual behavior. Community-led structural interventions (CLSI) represent a particular form of structural interventions whereby the collective energy of FSW is directed toward action to address the contextual factors that promote their risk. Among these different contextual factors that may be the target of CLSI, are social norms that stigmatize FSW and their work.

The context of economic insecurity and its relation to violence and risk factors for HIV among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Objective: We examined the context of economic insecurity and debt among female sex workers (FSWs), how this context varies among FSWs, and its association with experiences of violence and sexual risk factors for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Methods: We recruited FSWs aged > or =18 years (n = 673) through respondent-driven sampling for a survey on HIV risk in this region. Using logistic regression models (adjusted for partner status, education, financial support, and literacy), we assessed the relation between debt and sexual and physical victimization as well as sexual risk.

Can sex workers regulate police? Learning from an HIV prevention project for sex workers in southern India.

There is an argument that policing practices exacerbate HIV risk, particularly for female sex workers. Interventions that mobilize sex workers to seek changes in laws and law enforcement practices have been prominent in India and have received considerable scholarly attention. Yet, there are few studies on the strategies sex worker advocates use to modify police behavior or the struggles they face in challenging state institutions.

Power, community mobilization, and condom use practices among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Objectives: We used a structural interventions framework to analyse the associations between power and condom use among a sample of female sex workers (FSW), and how exposure to a local community mobilization intervention (CMI) affects these associations.

Design: Data came from a cross-sectional survey of 812 FSW in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, India, recruited through respondent-driven sampling.

Methods: We identified three types of power - collective power, control over work, and economic power, and three dimensions of collective power - collective identity, efficacy, and agency.

Informing women about their breast cancer risks: truth and consequences.

We assessed the extent to which informing women about their risk for breast cancer affected their perceived 10-year and lifetime risks for getting breast cancer, their emotional reactions toward getting breast cancer, and their intentions to get mammograms. In a pre- to posttest design, 121 women were given their 10-year risk of getting breast cancer with or without being compared with women their age and race at lowest risk. Women's perceptions of their 10-year risks became more congruent (i.

Testing different formats for communicating colorectal cancer risk.

This study assessed the extent to which different formats of informing men and women age 50 and over of the risks of colorectal cancer (CRC) affected their perceptions of their absolute and comparative (self versus other) 10-year and lifetime risks; emotional reactions about getting CRC; and screening intentions. Forty-four men and 78 women received information about the absolute lifetime risk of getting CRC. In addition, participants either did or did not receive information about (1) lifetime risk of getting CRC compared with other cancers, and (2) risk factors for CRC (age and polyps).