Measuring HIV Services Integration Activities

ABSTRACT Despite efforts for more than four decades to better integrate the delivery of health and human services, particularly for individuals with problems that cross service sectors, such as HIV, our understanding remains limited as to what successful services integration (SI) strategies look like and whether they translate into improved client health and well being. One obstacle to expanding our knowledge of SI is the absence of a conceptual vocabulary and corresponding measures that delineate the salient features that allow us to compare and contrast the many concrete forms of SI initiatives. Drawing on past research literature, this article presents a conceptual taxonomy for classifying different components of SI initiatives. We present operational measures for the concepts in the taxonomy and illustrate their application for a comparative analysis of services integration activities implemented by 34 HIV service demonstration projects.