Looking Deeper into the HIV Epidemic: A questionnaire for Tracing Sexual Networks (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 1998, 24 p.): 4. Implications for data collection methods

Looking Deeper into the HIV Epidemic: A questionnaire for Tracing Sexual Networks (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 1998, 24 p.)

		(introduction...)
		1. Introduction
		2. The individual questionnaire for evaluation
		3. Risk networks: the need for research in sexual networks
		4. Implications for data collection methods
		5. Questionnaire design
		6. Collecting data
		7. Analysing the data
		8. Future research
		References
		Appendix - Multi-site study : questionnaire I - Men and Women

4. Implications for data collection methods

Ideally, for a better understanding of the nature of these networks, information should be collected on every sexually active person and every relationship in the population at risk. This would require respondents to identify their partners so that each partnership could be uniquely identified. That approach would raise serious issues with regard not only to practicability but also to privacy and confidentiality.

By contrast, local network data require only information collected from a representative sample of respondents on selected attributes for each sexual partner in a given period. This is the approach that is proposed in the new UNAIDS sexual networks questionnaire.