Toward meaningful cultural adaptation across implementation stages: Lessons learned from a culturally based HIV stigma intervention in Gaborone, Botswana
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Key Messages:- We share lessons learned on how each stage of the implementation process of a culturally based stigma intervention benefited from cultural adaptation—including incorporating interexchange of knowledge during formative work, leveraging bilingualism and the cultural familiarity of local collaborators during the intervention, and prioritizing the concerns of local collaborators to inform intervention sustainment and scale-up.
- The implementation process could have been improved by more fully formalizing and recognizing the steps taken by local collaborators to culturally adapt throughout design and implementation.
- Lessons learned from this demonstration case can inform scale-up and sustainment of interventions whose implementation relies—either explicitly or implicitly—on cultural adaptation and local collaborators.
- Programs can benefit from building relationships of mutual respect and reciprocity with local collaborators and formally recognizing and supporting their contributions to cultural adaptation throughout the stages of implementation.
Full citation:
Poku OB, Eschliman EL, Wang RY, Rampa S, Mehta H, Entaile P, Li T, Jackson VW, Ho-Foster A, Blank MB, Yang LH (2022). Toward meaningful cultural adaptation across implementation stages: Lessons learned from a culturally based HIV stigma intervention in Gaborone, Botswana
Global Health: Science and Practice, 10 (6), e2200232. doi: 10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00232 . PMCID: PMC9771462.