Evaluation issues and strategies for community-based organizations developing women's HIV prevention programs

This article discusses issues and strategies for program evaluation particularly useful for community-based organizations (CBOs) involved in the development and implementation of HIV preventing programs for women. The approach the authors present is an extension of a traditional public health paradigm suggested for use in the development and evaluation of violence prevention programs. This study incorporates Becker's Health Belief Model, which provides a framework for viewing the influence of various psychosocial variables on health-related behavior, into this development and evaluation paradigm. Factors influencing the successful development and evaluation of HIV prevention programs for women are reviewed and discussed. The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance to CBOs to strengthen their evaluation strategies and to encourage their use of evaluation during all phases of program development and implementation.