In 2007, the endowed ANNIKA LINDEN FOUNDATION CHAIR for the ENRICHMENT OF HEALTH SCIENCE STUDIES IN ENGLISH was established. In January 2007, the position was filled by Mellissa Withers from the University of California at Los Angeles, who conducted an intensive course in writing a medical literature review in English for selected medical students. In April 2007, the position was filled by I Made Setiawan, a Balinese PhD candidate in Public Health at the University of Illinois, who is working with both the MREC and the UNUD School of Public Health in designing a program for public health research.
Setiawan taught from 2007 – 2009 (he is currently on leave) in the Public Health Department and mentored dozens of students and junior faculty. Not only did he bring in new teaching methodologies and ideologies, but he also was able to bring in some substantial grants to do studies on HIV/AIDS in Bali.
In 2008, Setiawan appointed Sang Gede Purnama (a lecturer at the School of Public Health) as the principle investigator and manager of an intervention study on HIV/AIDS. His team of field workers recruited from the local male community succeeded in revealing the intricate social and risk network of HIV/AIDS among village populations in the study sites, e.g. three sub-districts in Gianyar. The goal of this project is to assess the HIV/AIDS related level of knowledge, attitude, behavior and the social and risk taking network among village men who buy sex. The research team found that the notion of ‘risk relation sexual concurrency’ is a common practice among the village men who participated in the study. The term of risk relation sexual concurrency is locally known as ‘indang indang sidi’ and involves a number of sexual partnership where female commercial sex workers, village men and their village female sexual relationships all take place within the same period of time. This type of risk relationship has been identified as the main driver of HIV/AIDS infection distribution to the general community in the sub Saharan Africa. This project began in September 2008 and the findings from this study are startling. It has been assumed that most of the HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia are limited to IDU (Injecting Drug Users) and gay male populations. This study has shown that the general population (including wives of men who are buying sex outside their marriage) is now at risk.
Setiawan, Purnama and their mentor Dr. Partha Muliawan have been trying to channel their findings to the HIV/AIDS authority in Bali for better policy changes in HIV/AIDS intervention by various ways such as conducting internal briefings among the School of Public Health’s academics and individual lobbying. They presented the findings to the ICAAP IX (International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific) Conference held in Nusa Dua on August 9-13th. So far, these efforts have yielded a lively discussion concerning the mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS intervention in Bali by considering an implementation of provider initiated counseling and testing (PICT) for HIV among selected populations based on their historical risk behaviors.
The first attempt to introduce PICT was pioneered by conducting a feasibility study among pregnant women who visit elected midwives for health check ups all over Bali. The feasibility study is being conducted by researchers from IKM UNUD (Dr. Sawitri and Dr. Septarini).
This project is made possible through funding by:
