HIV prevention metrics: lessons to be learned from contraception

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Biomedical Sciences

Background:

• Increasingly diverse HIV prevention options present measurement challenges.
• Individual and temporal variations in prevention needs complicate assessment.
• The field of contraception offers established metrics for similar challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore similarities and differences between HIV prevention and contraception.
• To adapt contraceptive metrics for assessing HIV prevention efforts.
• To improve the measurement of HIV prevention program effectiveness.

Main Methods:

• Examined measures of initiation, coverage, and persistence.
• Adapted contraception metrics like Contraceptive Use-Post Partum, Contraception Protection Index, and Couple-Years Protection.
• Proposed HIV Prevention-Post Testing, Net Prevention Coverage, HIV Protection Index, and Person-Years of HIV Protection.

Main Results:

• HIV Prevention-Post Testing is a potential corollary to Contraceptive Use-Post Partum.
• Net Prevention Coverage and HIV Protection Index are useful coverage measures.
• Person-Years of HIV Protection can be adapted for persistence assessment.

Conclusions:

• Adapting contraceptive metrics can enhance the assessment of HIV prevention.
• Refined metrics allow for better comparison of HIV prevention programs over time.
• These metrics support global targets for HIV incidence reduction, including UNAIDS Goals.