ABSTRACT
Since the World Health Organization set up its Global Programme on AIDS, those in charge of this programme, in agreement with most public health officials, have stressed that information and education are the cornerstones of HIV control, since encouraging responsible behaviour by providing full information on the subject can be an effective means of preventing the transmission of the virus (Mann and Kay, 1988). Early social sciences research on AIDS, which consisted of surveys on the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices of various sections of the population with regard to this epidemic (KABP studies), replicated findings obtained in other health education areas, such as prevention of smoking, prevention of cardiovascular diseases, or promotion of birth-control. Apart from some methodological and even epistemological difficulties in defining the concepts of beliefs and attitudes (Downie, Fife and Tannahill, 1991; Homar and Kahle, 1988), it seems to be fairly easy to correlate knowledge and beliefs with individual and collective attitudes towards the disease. However, the links often become more tenuous, not to say completely illogical, when one analyses reported behaviour on the basis of people’s statements or actual behaviour based on direct observation.
