Research On The Relevant Factors Influencing The Degree To Which Leaders Participate In AIDS Control And The Model Of Leadership Development

BackgroundEfficient preventative measures and strong political commitment are important tactics for AIDS prevention and control in every country. The theme for 2005 World AIDS Day was "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise" further strengthens the role of leadership strategy for AIDS control. China is increasingly putting emphasis on leadership development for AIDS control, but in reality a relatively large disparities and concrete problems still exist in this area; Besides, there are lack of relevant research on the subject.Objectives(1) Understand the leader's overall comprehension and evaluation of AIDS control; distinguish the concrete questions and obstacles leaders are faced with.(2) Identify the relevant factors that influence the degree of leader participation in AIDS prevention and control.(3) Provide leaders a feasibility model of leadership development of AIDS prevention and control.MethodsUtilize the qualitative research the most through in-depth interview targeting 47 local leaders either from health and non-health government sectors in 14 countries/cities in Hubei and Shandong provinces, who participated the training program "Leadership for Results", sponsored by UNDP in 2004. Meanwhile, one focus group was conducted in each of the province. Based on the basic describing information, category and conclude the results, and supplement the relevant information by questionnaire.Results:Leaders at all levels in the two provinces put strong pity on the former illegal plasma donators (FPD), Whereas with different attitude towards the drug users and commercial sex workers and limited understanding of the men who have sex with men (MSM). Highly acceptance of intervention targeting the different vulnerable groups with public health approaches. There are still gaps for leaders of non-heath sectors to fully understand the related AIDS policy and the dynamic epidemic information. The overall comprehension and evaluation of AIDS prevention and control in the two provinces are almost the same.It is realized that the relevant factors influencing the degree to which leaders participated in AIDS prevention and control can be broken down into two categories, those inside and outside factors. Relevant outside factors include: (1) Attention from key leaders in higher positions: lack of full support from the top local leaders to AIDS control; some concern of the impact of AIDS advocacy on economic construction. (2) The feasibility and time-effectiveness of the policy: lack of guidelines and measurable indicators of policy implementation. (3) Financial shortfalls and management: Lack of matching fund from the local government with possible problems of funds management and supervision. (4) The potency of multi-sectoral cooperation: Lack of feasible monitoring and evaluation mechanism in place...