The Collaboration Process in HIV Prevention and Evaluation in an Urban American Indian Clinic for Women

Abstract

Collaboration between providers and researchers can be key to doing women's HIV prevention that is holistic, gender sensitive, and responsive to communities. This report centers on providers' and evaluators' experiences in developing and implementing a project promoting "healthy relationships" with low-income women from different ethnicities at an urban American Indian clinic. During planning, decisions on the health problems to be targeted, division of labor, program goals, resource allocation, evaluation design, and outcome measures were jointly made. Other factors were the input of participants and the influence of American Indian values at the clinic. The implementation process was fully collaborative. There are implications for creating conditions for successful collaborations in health education.