HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa, must first begin with a systematic, conceptually sound approach to understanding the beliefs, personal values and community norms about having and seeking treatment for these illnesses. The project begins by developing an in-depth understanding of the individual’s ‘Personal Illness Models’ for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

This model address the process of how individuals perceive or define health problems, choose coping responses, and how they evaluate the efficacy of their coping efforts over the course of an illness. It also addresses how these processes change as individuals experience recurrent symptoms or episodes of an illness. Understanding commercial sex workers and street children (CSW/SC) personal illness models perspective is important to their illnesses (e.g., seeking treatment, adherence to treatment, performing self-care behaviors) are believed to be determined in part by their subjective beliefs.

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