RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Knowing your HIV/AIDS epidemic and tailoring an effective response: how did India do it?
JF Sexually Transmitted Infections
JO Sex Transm Infect
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 240
OP 249
DO 10.1136/sextrans-2011-050382
VO 88
IS 4
A1 Sema K Sgaier
A1 Mariam Claeson
A1 Charles Gilks
A1 Banadakoppa M Ramesh
A1 Peter D Ghys
A1 Alkesh Wadhwani
A1 Aparajita Ramakrishnan
A1 Annie Tangri
A1 Chandramouli K
YR 2012
UL http://sti.bmj.com/content/88/4/240.abstract
AB Tremendous global efforts have been made to collect data on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Yet, significant challenges remain for generating and analysing evidence to allocate resources efficiently and implement an effective AIDS response. India offers important lessons and a model for intelligent and integrated use of data on HIV/AIDS for an evidence-based response. Over the past 15 years, the number of data sources has expanded and the geographical unit of data generation, analysis and use for planning has shifted from the national to the state, district and now subdistrict level. The authors describe and critically analyse the evolution of data sets in India and how they have been utilised to better understand the epidemic, advance policy, and plan and implement an increasingly effective, well-targeted and decentralised national response to HIV and AIDS. The authors argue that India is an example of how ‘know your epidemic, know your response’ message can effectively be implemented at scale and presents important lessons to help other countries design their evidence generation systems.