Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 1 Dec 1995
Lori Valigra / Reuter

Convening on World AIDS Day, the panel cited successful programs for intravenous drug users, high-school students and poor inner-city women.

"We don't have to wait for a cure to see positive results of intervention," said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the division of AIDS prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "But some people still think HIV prevention doesn't work."

Valdiserri said a recent study by the Office of Technology Assessment found that sex and AIDS education for school-aged youths does not increase sexual activity nor does supplying sterile needles to intravenous drug users raise the incidence of drug use.

He also cited two separate studies which appeared in the New England of Medicine on couples in which one partner is HIV infected, which showed that consistent use of condoms prevented HIV transmission to the other partner.

"The scientific basis clearly underscores the fact that prevention does work," Valdiserri said. "If HIV prevention is consistent with the norms and values of the group on which it is used then it does work."

However, health workers who aim to set up AIDS prevention programs face a daunting task. Such programs must be tailored to age, ethnic and gender-specific groups, among other connsiderations.

"Current health models don't let us look at gender in any meaningful way," said Hortensia Amaro, professor of social and behavioral sciences at Boston University and a founder of the Latino Health Institute in Massachusetts.

In a study of pregnant inner-city women in Boston who were involved with drugs either as users or partners of users, she found that 10 percent of women were infected with HIV through heterosexual relations, compared with only 3 percent of men.

"AIDS from heterosexual sex is growing among females," she said. "We need to look at a female gender model in delivering an AIDS prevention program."

Amaro noted that the male condom is the primary means of avoiding HIV infection, and that women's "permanent inequality" meant they faced an added risk because male partners may refuse to use a condom.

"A key aspect of HIV prevention strategies is to increase women's skills and assertiveness in negotiating safer sex. This is in direct conflict with the social status ascribed to women," Amaro said.

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