NIS Study

Network-Informed Community-Based Saturation Screening for HIV (NIS Study)

The NIS study identified ways to develop an effective community-wide HIV screening program that would serve residents and contribute toward positive health outcomes. In the first phase of the study, we utilized ethnography and in-depth interviews to access the beliefs and attitudes of residents living in communities at high risk for HIV/AIDS. In the second phase of the study, we surveyed and conducted HIV tests with 900 persons utilizing several testing methods, including respondent-driven, chain link and snowball sampling methods. The primary goal was a test of concept for a network-driven, community-based screening project that would determine which sampling methods would best serve the policies of ‘seek, test, and treat’ for HIV/AIDS.