The fundamentals of AIDS prevention are as easy to remember as ABC – abstinence, be faithful and use condoms – but this approach is too broad to be effective, said Prof. Richard Joseph, the director of Northwestern’s African Studies program.
Instead AIDS researchers should work with social scientists to create unique AIDS prevention tactics for specific communities, he said.
This community-centered approach is the crux of African Studies’ AIDS prevention project in Nigeria that received a $3 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in December. The project pioneers tailoring AIDS-prevention strategies to specific at-risk communities, Joseph said.
The size of the grant is noteworthy because the project is a social science endeavor, not hard-science research, said Bradley Moore, NU’s vice president for research. This is the largest grant the African Studies program has ever received.
Moore noted the program’s success could improve NU’s reputation.
“If the program is successful in its goal and demonstrates an effective strategy for dealing with AIDS in Africa … you can expect to see government contributing in serious ways,” Moore said.
The first phase of the project is planned to last three years and focus on reaching six diverse communities in Nigeria. NU will aid field researchers at the University of Ibadan and other Nigerian institutions. Joseph and his colleagues are working out a structure for the program.
“The real challenge is being able to develop prevention strategies that can actually work in different cultural contexts,” Joseph said. “Nigeria is a large and complex country with many different ethnic groups.”
What is particularly tricky is that AIDS prevention is grounded in behavior modification, “which means you’re getting into a very sensitive area of any society,” Joseph said. “Within (a) community you’ll have local traditional rulers; you’ll have community leaders who will themselves know how to actually reach the members of their community.”
Nigeria is estimated to have the world’s third largest HIV-infected population after South Africa and India, according to an African Studies press release.
Nigeria had between 3.2 million and 3.6 million people living with HIV and AIDS in 2003, according to the United Nations AIDS Web site.
Joseph said he began discussing ideas for his project when he was a professor at Emory University in the late 1990s. His discussions with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta proved fruitful when one of his contacts moved to the Gates Foundation to be responsible for grants for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria research.
It took two-and-a-half years for the program to receive its grant. Meanwhile, the program had applied for a number of other grants.
“(The Gates grant application) took more time than all of the others put together,” Joseph said.
Gates grants are very competitive, Moore said. Since 2000, the Gates foundation has given nearly $10 billion in grants.
NU has received two Gates grants before. In 1999, NU received a quarter of a million dollars for a scholarship fund. NU also received $75,000 to research HIV and other STDs.
The Gates Foundation said no one was available for comment.
The African Studies program considered focusing on all of West Africa, but the Gates Foundation wanted the project to dovetail its efforts in Nigeria. The foundation is concerned about preventing an “explosive return” of HIV infections, as has happened in other countries, Joseph said.
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