Identifying problems in community health promotion: an illustration of the Nominal Group Technique in AIDS education

Recognition of the extent and consequences of HIV/AIDS in Africa has resulted in many large scale health promotion programmes. These programmes usually provide information about how to avoid contracting HIV as well as information to dispel false beliefs about the virus. However there also exist anti-health promotion ideas about HIV/AIDS which often challenge the very premises on which health promotion messages are based. Such anti-health promotion ideas may represent reassuring benefits and these are likely to vary not only across cultures but also between different communities and 'at risk' groups within the same culture. The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a participative exercise which can be used with small groups to achieve a consensus concerning which anti-health promotion ideas are most influential in terms of encouraging people to ignore health promoting messages. The application of the NGT is illustrated with a group of Malawian students.