Improving quality in prevention

Individuals and organizations are increasingly aware that the quality of their HIV prevention work must be better and more consistent to have a sustained impact on the epidemic.

For a long time, prevention has focused simply on the number of people reached, with little regard for the quality of the interventions. But quality – in parallel with growing concerns about value for money – is rapidly becoming a key consideration for prevention programs.

Decades of experience with Quality Improvement in the private sector have confirmed there is always room for improvement in products, services and processes.

The challenge is to find an approach that can be successfully applied to improve HIV prevention activities, projects and programs.

The IQhiv initiative was jointly founded by a partnership of WHO/Europe, the German Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) and AIDS Action Europe. Since its founding in 2009, IQhiv has consulted widely with stakeholders from government, academia and civil society to ensure that its work is relevant and useful. The initiative is currently overseen by a core group of stakeholders, including representatives from each of the founding partners.

A range of international organizations, government agencies, national and regional NGOs, academic institutions as well as individual experts and HIV prevention implementers support and participate in the initiative.