Acceptability and feasibility of cash transfers for HIV prevention among adolescent South African women.

Women are at increased risk of HIV infection in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have found an association between school attendance and reduced HIV risk. We report feasibility and acceptability results from a pilot of a cash transfer intervention conditional on school attendance paid to young women and their families in rural Mpumalanga, South Africa for the prevention of HIV infection. Twenty-nine young women were randomised to intervention or control and a cash payment based on school attendance made over a 2-month period. Quantitative (survey) and qualitative (focus group and interview) data collection was undertaken with young women, parents, teachers and young men in the same school. Qualitative analysis was conducted in Atlas.ti using a framework approach and basic descriptive analysis in Excel was conducted on the quantitative data. Results indicate it was both feasible and acceptable to introduce such an intervention among this population in rural South Africa. There was good understanding of the process of randomisation and the aims of the study, although some rumours developed in the study community. We address some of the changes necessary to ensure acceptability and feasibility of the main trial.

The social determinants of tuberculosis: from evidence to action.

Growing consensus indicates that progress in tuberculosis control in the low- and middle-income world will require not only investment in strengthening tuberculosis control programs, diagnostics, and treatment but also action on the social determinants of tuberculosis. However, practical ideas for action are scarcer than is notional support for this idea. We developed a framework based on the recent World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health and on current understanding of the social determinants of tuberculosis. Interventions from outside the health sector-specifically, in social protection and urban planning-have the potential to strengthen tuberculosis control.

Understanding use of health services in conditional cash transfer programs: insights from qualitative research in Latin America and Turkey.

Conditional cash transfer programs provide cash grants to poor households conditional on their participation in primary health care services. While significant impacts have been demonstrated quantitatively, little attention is paid to why CCTs have these observed impacts, and as importantly- why impacts are not greater than they are. This article draws on qualitative research from four countries over a ten year period (1999-2009) to provide insights into why expected health and nutrition impacts do and do not occur. In Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Turkey, ethnographic methods were used, involving between 87 and 120 households per country, and in Mexico, focus groups were conducted with 230 people. Key informant interviews were conducted with health care providers in all countries. While CCTs operate primarily on the assumption that a cash incentive will produce behaviour change, we found multiple sociocultural and structural influences on health care decisions that compete with cash. These include beliefs around traditional and modern biomedical practices, sociocultural norms, gender relations, and the quotidian experience of poverty in many dimensions. We conclude that impacts can be increased through a better understanding of multiple contextual influences on health care decisions, and greater attention to the health education components and complementary interventions.