Category 1: Assessment
Conducting an assessment
Defining information needs
To start with, consider the minimum information needed to start an intervention. More detailed information can be collected subsequently. Assessments typically gather information on the following matters.
Context of sex work
- Different types of sex workers and clients
- Sex workers' needs, perceptions and priorities
- Perceptions and priorities of other actors involved in sex work
- Laws and policies surrounding sex work (and migration if this is a local issue)
- Policies and priorities of funding agencies
- Key stakeholders
- Potential intervention partners, allies or opponents
- Demographic information
- Local occupational and community structures, relationships and lifestyles
- Factors that can facilitate or hinder intervention
Knowledge and behaviours
- Level and patterns of risk behaviours of sex workers, clients and regular partners, and the contexts in which they occur
- Patterns of health-seeking behaviour
- Levels and knowledge of condom use or other safer sex methods
- Knowledge and attitudes about HIV/AIDS and STIs
- Potential channels, methods, materials and messages for reaching target groups
Services
- Services already in existence (formal, informal, facility-based, community-based, biomedical or traditional)
- Potential for cooperation with interventions
- Quality
- Attitudes of service providers
- Local perceptions and utilization patterns