Program Operations Guidelines for STD Prevention: Community & Individual Behavior Change Interventions

Historically, STD prevention programs have been based on a biomedical model that focused on secondary prevention by treating infected individuals. More recently, STD prevention programs have been encouraged to support more interventions that effect changes in behavior. Many behavioral interventions proven to change behaviors that pose risks to health, including sexual behavior, are highly effective. An advantage of behavioral interventions is that they are capable of preventing all STDs, while biomedical interventions are specific only for certain STDs. If behavioral interventions could be widely implemented along with biomedical approaches, they are likely to have a substantial effect on the prevention of STDs.

This presents a menu of options for program managers who are seeking ways to implement community and individual behavior change interventions. These options should be tailored to the individual program based on an analysis of local risk issues. Program managers should build partnerships with behavioral scientists to accomplish this task.