Health Toolkit From EngenderHealth for Caregivers of HIV/AIDS

A new online toolkit will assist community-based organisations better manage information about the spread of HIV/AIDS and thus help improve treatment and support for people living with AIDS (PLWAs) .

As described in the Toolkit, the number of people who live with HIV/AIDS continues to grow dramatically. As a result , community organisations need to grow as well and must have the resources to help those in need. The Health Toolkit offers community-based caregivers and clinic-based health workers in low-resource settings helpful information in the form of: key findings and recommendations; comparisons of existing software tools aiding organisations; and a selection of hard-to-find reports and tools that address the issue of data-management. A team of researchers in five countries (Botswana, Ghana, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zambia) led focus group discussions with more than 100 health care providers and conducted technology assessments of 15 nongovernmental organisations. After this fieldwork was completed, the team evaluated existing software and adapted data-management needs that emerged from the research and put the results in the Health Toolkit.