Adapting and disseminating a community-collaborative, evidence-based HIV/AIDS prevention programme: Lessons from the history of CHAMP

Abstract

In recent years, calls for the scaling-up, or more broad dissemination of evidence-based HIV prevention programmes, have increased. This paper responds to the call for increasing applicable knowledge about programme dissemination by reviewing the history of a major evidence-based human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and mental health promotion programme that has been adapted successfully and pilot-tested across four settings – including two major cities, as well as in the United States, Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa – to date. This programme, entitled CHAMP (the Collaborative HIV Prevention & Adolescent Mental Health Project), is distinctive primarily for its emphasis on community collaboration and power-sharing, and also its incorporation of individual, family and community-level interventions. The history of programme development, including theoretical foundations and results across sites, is discussed with a particular emphasis on the implications of CHAMP's dissemination thus far.

Keywords:

• HIV prevention programme
• dissemination
• family-focused HIV prevention
• community collaboration
• CHAMP

Acknowledgements

Funding from the National Institutes of Mental Health Grant (no. R01 MH55701; PI Paikoff; no. R01 MH63622; PI McKay; no. R01MH58566; PI McKay; no. R01 MH64872; PI Bell) and the W. T. Grant Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The work discussed herein is the collective product of CHAMP co-investigators, participants and the CHAMP Collaborative Boards across sites, whose tireless oversight and involvement have been central to the projects discussed herein.