Developing a structural intervention to delay underage alcohol use and reduce HIV risk among vulnerable youth in Kampala, Uganda - Monica Swahn

Youth living in poverty in Kampala slums are exposed to intense alcohol marketing and have high levels of HIV (10%), a situation that warrants urgent structural intervention. This NIH-funded community-based project – a collaboration between Georgia State University's School of Public Health and the Uganda Youth Development Link NGO in Kampala – aims to develop and evaluate an empirically informed structural intervention to target underage drinking (<18 years of age) and to reduce risk of alcohol-related risky sex among vulnerable youth.

Galeshewe Stories: A booklet produced by the Northern Cape community alcohol advocacy project

 

STRIVE affiliate member, Soul City, trained young people to collecct personal stories on the impact of alcohol on their families, their friends and themselves. In Galeshewe in the Northern Cape, these young people gathered data about alcohol advertising along with their stories about the role of alcohol in people’s lives. 

My mother drinks a lot and she does things without even herself being aware of these things – at times even asking me what she did when she is sober.

One Man Can video

, ; Link to video

A short film documents the personal transformation of a young man overcoming alcoholism, gender stereotypes and social norms in rural Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Excessive drinking, King says, affected his education and made him and others vulnerable to HIV.

Then he joined One Man Can, a programme initiated by Sonke Gender Justice, Using a human rights framework to build the capacity of government, civil society and citizens across Southern Africa, Sonke aims to

Systematic review and meta-analysis: prevalence of alcohol use among young people in eastern Africa

, ; Systematic review and meta-analysis: prevalence of alcohol use among young people in eastern Africa

To estimate the prevalence of alcohol use and determine the extent of use of standardised screening questionnaires in alcohol studies, the authors searched five databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health, Africa-wide and PsycINFO. Their systematic review and meta-analysis found:

Factors associated with problem drinking among women employed in food and recreational facilities in northern Tanzania

, ; Factors associated with problem drinking among women employed in food and recreational facilities in northern Tanzania

Data from two at-risk female groups suggest that reducing problem drinking in this population would lower the risk of HIV infection.

 Growing evidence shows that alcohol consumption, particularly binge drinking, is associated with increased risk of HIV infection. STRIVE researchers interviewed two groups of women aged 18 to 24 employed in small towns in northern Tanzania in order to determine factors associated with problem drinking in this population and context. The study:

Alcohol, young people and HIV risk in Tanzania - Gerry Mshana

Alcohol availability and drinking norms are understood to be among the social and economic factors shaping HIV vulnerability. Relatively little structurally informed research on alcohol and HIV to date has come from sub-Saharan Africa, so experiences and analysis from Tanzania are of particular interest for the field.

Dr Gerry Mshana draws on research into sachets - small units of hard liquor being packaged and marketed in some African countries. Is the affordability of sachets, together with targeted marketing, changing drinking norms among young people? The presentation

Structural drivers and interventions: State of the evidence and barriers to action

Michael Samson summarises what we know about the structural factors shaping HIV risk and how to tackle them.

A high-level meeting in Washington, DC on 9 January 2014 addressed the social drivers of AIDS and extreme poverty. In this presentation to the gathering, the research director of EPRI (the Economic Policy Research Institute) synthesises the existing evidence base in order to:

STRIVE and AIDSTAR-One position paper series: Structural approaches to HIV prevention

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Critical issues for current and future research and for programmatic intervention design.

STRIVE and AIDSTAR-One presentations on structural prevention

The current and future direction of structural prevention efforts.

Measurement brief: Measuring alcohol-related HIV risk

Alcohol is a large contributor to sexual risk behaviour and HIV acquisition, according to a growing body of social science and epidemiological research.

Building on this emerging evidence, researchers need comparable measurements and tools in order to:

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