Frontline Health Service Providers’ Perspectives on HIV Vaccine Trials among Female Sex Workers and Men Who Have Sex with Men in Karnataka, South India
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Little qualitative research is available on the role of frontline health service providers (FHSPs) in the implementation of clinical trials, particularly in developing countries. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study about the perspectives of FHSPs on future HIV vaccine trials involving female sex workers (FSWs) and men who have sex with men (MSM) in three districts of Karnataka, India. In particular, we explore FHSPs' knowledge of and views on clinical trials in general, and examine their potential willingness to play a role if such trials were introduced or implemented in the region. METHODS: A field team of four researchers from Karnataka-two of whom self-identified with FSW or MSM communities ("community researchers") and two with backgrounds in social work-conducted in-depth interviews with FHSPs. Including community researchers in the study helped to build rapport with FSW and MSM participants and facilitate in-depth discussions. A coding scheme for transcribed and translated data was developed using a framework analysis approach. Data was then analysed thematically using a combination of a priori and emergent codes. RESULTS: Over half of FHSPs demonstrated limited knowledge or understanding of clinical trials. Despite reported skepticism around the testing of HIV vaccines in developing countries and concerns around potential side effects, most FHSPs strongly advocated for the implementation of HIV vaccine clinical trials in Karnataka. Further, most FHSPs expressed their willingness to be involved in future HIV vaccine clinical trials in varying capacities. CONCLUSION: Given that FHSPs are often directly involved in the promotion of health and well-being of FSWs and MSM, they are well-positioned to play leadership, ethical, and communicative roles in future HIV vaccine trials. However, our findings reveal a lack of awareness of clinical trials among FHSP participants, suggesting an important area for capacity building and staff development before viable and ethical clinical trials can be set up in the region.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".