PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Tisha Wheeler
AU  - Usha Kiran
AU  - Gina Dallabetta
AU  - Matangi Jayaram
AU  - Padma Chandrasekaran
AU  - Annie Tangri
AU  - Hari Menon
AU  - Sameer Kumta
AU  - Sema Sgaier
AU  - Aparajita Ramakrishnan
AU  - James Moore
AU  - Alkesh Wadhwani
AU  - Ashok Alexander
TI  - Learning about scale, measurement and community mobilisation: reflections on the implementation of the Avahan HIV/AIDS initiative in India
AID  - 10.1136/jech-2012-201081
DP  - 2012 Oct 01
TA  - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
PG  - ii16--ii25
VI  - 66
IP  - Suppl 2
4099  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/66/Suppl_2/ii16.short
4100  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/66/Suppl_2/ii16.full
SO  - J Epidemiol Community Health2012 Oct 01; 66
AB  - Debates have raged in development for decades about the appropriateness of participatory approaches and the degree to which they can be managed, scaled and measured. The Avahan programme confronted these issues over the last 7 years and concludes that it is advantageous to manage scaled community mobilisation processes so that participation evolves and programming on the ground is shaped by what is learnt through implementation. The donor (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and its partners determined a standard set of programme activities that were implemented programme-wide but evolved with input from communities on the ground. Difficulties faced in monitoring and measurement in Avahan may be characteristic of similar efforts to measure community mobilisation in a scaled programme, and ultimately these challenges informed methods that were useful. The approach the programme undertook for learning and changing, the activities it built into the HIV prevention programme, and its logic model and measurement tools, may be relevant in other public health settings seeking to integrate community mobilisation.