New website :: HIVTools

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The HIVTools Research Group at the London School of Hygiene &

Tropical

Medicine are pleased to announce the launch of our new HIVTools

web-site:

www.hivtools.lshtm.ac.uk

The HIVTools web-site is our online presence - providing up-to-date

information on the group's activities, as well as the latest

downloads

for:

· HIVTools/UNAIDS costing guidelines

· HIVTools mathematical models for estimating the impact of

different

HIV prevention interventions

· Publications and reports

· Presentations

· Links to funders, collaborators and relevant HIV resource lists

The HIVTools Research Group is a multidisciplinary academic research

group conducting HIV/AIDS-related research in resource-poor settings.

Based in the Health Policy Unit at LSHTM, the group carries out

research and training in epidemiological modelling and economic

analysis. Group members are specialists in economics, mathematics,

epidemiology, and behavioural science.

Policy and programming applications of the research include:

· National planning and financing, resource allocation and

replication

scaling up

· Intervention monitoring and evaluation

· Priority-setting

· Standardisation of methodologies

· Tools for decision-making

As part of their research the HIVTools Research Group has been

working

on estimating the impact and cost-effectiveness of HIV prevention

activities in different settings in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. They

have developed a cost-effectiveness tool-kit - 'HIVTools' - targeted

at researchers, policy makers and programme managers wishing to

conduct cost-effectiveness analysis of HIV prevention interventions.

The HIVTools toolkit covers an expanding range of interventions

including condom promotion, strengthening of STI treatment, blood

safety, needle exchange and the use of microbicides, as well as

multi-faceted interventions focusing on specific vulnerable groups

(adolescents, injecting drug users, sex workers and their clients).

The toolkit has been used to estimate the impact and

cost-effectiveness of interventions in Bangladesh, Belarus, Cameroon,

South Africa, Ukraine and Zambia.

The HIVTools Research Group collaborates with three DFID knowledge

programmes based at LSHTM: Health Economics and Financing, AIDS and

Tuberculosis Programmes and the International Perinatal Care

Programme

at the Institute of Child Health. The group also works

collaboratively

with partners in each of the project countries.

Funders of the HIVTools Research Group include: UNAIDS, DFID, the

British Council, PATH, IFH, the Rockefeller Foundation, and WHO.

Contact: You can contact us at hivtools@... or postal address

HIVTools Research Group, Health Policy Unit, LSHTM, Keppel Street,

London WC1E 7HT, UK.