Strategies to Identify and Reach Young Women Who Sell Sex With HIV Prevention and Care Services: Lessons Learnt From the Implementation of DREAMS Services in Two Cities in Zimbabwe
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Young women who sell sex (YWSS), are underserved by available HIV prevention and care services. The Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) Partnership aimed to reduce the risk of HIV acquisition among vulnerable populations of adolescent girls and young women, including YWSS, in 10 sub-Saharan African countries. We describe 2 methods, respondent-driven sampling (RDS) and peer outreach, used to refer YWSS for DREAMS services in Zimbabwe, and compare the characteristics and engagement of YWSS referred to these services by each method. We hypothesized that RDS would identify YWSS at higher risk of HIV and those who were less engaged with HIV prevention and care services than peer outreach. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to compare respondent-driven sampling and peer outreach in recruiting and referring high-risk populations for HIV prevention and care services. METHODS: We used RDS, a sampling method designed to reach a representative sample of the network of key populations, and peer outreach, a programmatic approach to identify, reach, and refer YWSS for DREAMS between April and July 2017, and January 2017 and July 2018, respectively, in 2 cities in Zimbabwe. For RDS, we conducted detailed mapping to understand sex work typology and geography, and then purposively selected 10 "seed" participants in each city to initiate RDS. For peer outreach, we initiated recruitment through 18 trained and age-matched peer educators using youth-tailored community mobilization. We described the characteristics and service engagement of YWSS who accessed DREAMS services by each referral approach and assessed the association of these characteristics with referral approach using the chi-square test. Analysis was performed with and without restricting the period when RDS took place. We estimated the relative incremental costs of recruiting YWSS using each strategy for referral to DREAMS services. RESULTS: Overall, 5386 and 1204 YWSS were referred for DREAMS services through peer outreach and RDS, respectively. YWSS referred through RDS were more likely to access DREAMS services compared to YWSS referred through peer outreach (501/1204, 41.6% vs 930/5386, 17.3%; P<.001). Regardless of referral approach, YWSS who accessed DREAMS had similar education levels, and a similar proportion tested HIV negative and reported not using a condom at the last sex act. A higher proportion of YWSS accessing DREAMS through RDS were aged 18-19 years (167/501, 33.3% vs 243/930, 26.1%; P=.004) and more likely to be aware of their HIV status (395/501, 78.8% vs 396/930, 42.6%; P<.001) compared to those accessing DREAMS services through peer outreach. The incremental cost per young woman who sells sex recruited was US $7.46 for peer outreach and US $52.81 for RDS. CONCLUSIONS: Peer outreach and RDS approaches can reach and refer high-risk but different groups of YWSS for HIV services, and using both approaches will likely improve reach. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-DOI 10.1186/s12889-018-5085-6.
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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 | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 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".