considering how to go about HIV prevention is a hierarchy o

A good guideline to keep in mind when considering how to go about HIV prevention is a hierarchy of
prevention, which can help to set small, achievable steps which can be reached progressively [19].
In a review paper from UNICEF, this typical hierarchy appears:
“The most effective way to prevent transmission is to never start or to stop using drugs.
If this overall goal is not achieved for a specific individual, the drug user should be encouraged
to use drugs in any way except injecting: if you do not inject, you cannot catch infections
through sharing drug preparation or injection equipment.
If this goal is not achieved, the drug user should be encouraged to inject with new/sterile
injecting equipment every time and to not share preparation equipment.
If this goal is not achieved, the drug user should be encouraged to re-use his/her own injecting/
preparation equipment every time: if you re-use your own equipment every time, you cannot
catch viral infections such as HIV (unless someone else has used your equipment without
your knowledge).
If this goal is not achieved, the drug user should be encouraged to clean needles/syringes
and other equipment by an approved method. There is some risk of HIV transmission after
equipment cleaning, but cleaning in an approved manner will reduce the likelihood of
transmission.
The hierarchy provides small steps which drug users can be encouraged to take to reduce and
hopefully eliminate HIV risk behaviours.”
Know the target group
From chapter 1 you can probably understand that young people have very special issues and
needs that should be considered when wanting to build an HIV/AIDS prevention programme.
Remember that due to social isolation and stigmatization, as well as for many other reasons,
young IDUs will usually not come forward looking for information or help. For this reason, we
need to go out to where the youth are; a process called outreach, which will be explained
below. However, to do this, the first thing we need to know is who our target group is.
Some of the basic things that you should find out before you start are:
The demographics of your target group: characteristics such as age range, gender, social
status (are users mainly street youth or students), educational level.
The extent to which they inject: compared to the use of other types of drug administration.