Looking at loveLife: The First YearSummaries of Monitoring and Evaluation

loveLife is a deliberate departure from traditional approaches to HIV prevention, relying on a combination of commercial marketing and public health techniques to promote a new healthy lifestyle among a 12-17 year old target group – identified at highest risk of HIV infection. loveLife‘s strategy is premised on the importance of more open communication about sex and sexuality as an essential precondition for sexual behaviour change backed up by comprehensive services and support programs.

loveLife is taking to scale much of the substantial experience in adolescent sexual health established in South Africa and elsewhere over the past 15 years and is informed by international and local experience of HIV prevention. A five year research and evaluation plan for loveLife has been established, the framework of which is a multi-year comprehensive observational study tracking change in a range of behavioural indicators and for sexual health outcomes, including specifically, the incidence of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and teenage pregnancy. The attribution level and reliability of the observational study will be reinforced by smaller research studies including the use of biological markers to track the incidence of HIV among the target group.

In its first year loveLife has succeeded in creating brand recognition among almost 60% of South Africans nationally. This has been achieved through a large scale and intensive countrywide publicity campaign using outdoor media, television, radio and print. More than 90% of those who are aware of loveLife correctly identify the brand with healthy living and positive lifestyle and about 60% said that loveLife had caused them to think and talk about issues related to sex, sexuality and HIV/AIDS.

In addition to creating substantial public awareness and initiating a national conversation about sexual behaviour, loveLife has generated a major national response, most graphically illustrated by the volume of calls to loveLife‘s free telephone sexual health counseling and referral service. Calls to this service average more than 60 000 per month, with almost 30 000 calls handled. loveLife‘s awareness and education programs are reinforced by a nationwide clinic service development initiative, as well as other support programmes. While significant progress was made – 10 pilot adolescent-friendly clinics were launched, and Y-Centers providing a broader combination of recreational and clinical services began operation – development of institutional support is inevitably more incremental. Nonetheless, in the first year loveLife, through its various service and outreach programmes, is estimated to have reached in excess of 4 million young South Africans.

loveLife‘s impact ultimately will be a function of its ability to establish and sustain over many years a truly national scale programme with the same levels of intensity that have caused South Africans to pay attention to the initiative in the first place. Behaviour change is a function of personal engagement with and internalization by the target group of the message. Bridging the gap between media awareness and behaviour change is loveLife‘s priority for year two.

• Full Report (5.93 MB)
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Section 1: loveLife Rationale and Structure
• Section 2: Creating Awareness Through Media
• Section 3: Access to Knowledge and Influencing Attitudes
• Section 4: Access to Services: loveLife s Institutional Response
• Section 5: Community Mobilisation
• Section 6: The Public Response
• More about loveLife

A new policy brief discusses issues involving over $11 billion of S-CHIP funds that states have not spent. It has been proposed that states could apply to use the funds for unemployed workers in these tough economic times. What are the implications?

A new policy brief examines the role of Medicaid in state budgets, the reasons behind rising growth in the program, and explores strategies for states to cope with higher spending in tough economic times.

• Policy Brief
• Also see recent publications on maintaining health coverage and securing Medicaid in today’s economy

A national survey by The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health finds that people who have substantial experience with a friend or family member in a nursing home, or have been in a nursing home themselves, have generally positive views about the care provided. A significant minority of those with nursing home experience, however, says that the person they know has received poor quality care in the nursing home, including about a quarter that report incidents of abuse or overmedication. The majority of Americans see an important role for the government in long-term care, both in oversight of facility quality and in helping finance the costs for nursing home care.

Survey Highlights and Chartpack

Toplines/Survey

Many women rely on their physicians to help them assess whether they are at risk for STDs and to provide them with information about testing, treatment and how to protect themselves. To better understand how often they discuss and screen for STDs, including HIV, the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed 767 physicians, including 566 obstetricians and gynecologists and 201 family practice practitioners, for the National Survey of Women’s Health Care Providers on Reproductive Health.

A new report examines state efforts to expand Medicaid and SCHIP coverage to low-income parents and assesses the potential impact of insurance coverage for parents on access to care for themselves and their children.

An update to “Medicaid Budgets Under Stress: Survey Findings for State Fiscal Year 2000, 2001, and 2002.” This paper was commissioned to evaluate how several states’ fiscal outlooks have changed since September 11.

Assessing the Status of California’s Physician Workforce: Shortage or Surplus? — Issue Brief

A 4-page issue brief that looks at recent estimates of California’s present and future physician supply, various issues that affect the state s physician workforce, and approaches for ensuring an adequate number and mix of primary care and specialty physicians, as well as a balanced geographic and demographic distribution. The brief lists the panel for a California Health Policy Roundtable held in Sacramento, California on October 24, 2001.

• Issue Brief

The current economy is a key concern as federal and state leaders worry about the expected rise in unemployment and the related loss of employer health coverage. Policymakers are considering several options to ensure that we do not experience a health coverage crisis as we deal with the impact of the September 11th tragedy and ongoing concerns. In addition, states that were already preparing for budget problems are reporting even worse scenarios for their fiscal outlook.The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured has five new publications that can assist you as you grapple with the impact of recent events on our health care system.

• Testimony: Health Insurance for Unemployed Workers

• Issue Paper: Medicaid and State Budgets: An October 2001 Update
• Background Paper: Medicaid Budgets Under Stress: Survey Findings for State Fiscal Year 2000, 2001, and 2002
• Fact Sheet: COBRA Coverage for Low-Income Unemployed Workers
• Report: Covering Parents through Medicaid and SCHIP: Potential Benefits to Low-Income Parents and Children

Summarizes the COBRA health coverage law, how it is administered, what its limitations are, and how it impacts low-income workers.

• Fact Sheet