With the recognition that sex workers constitute a key population at higher risk for the acquisition and dissemination of sexually transmitted infections STIs has come an appreciation of the central role that they might assume in policy solutions to the global HIV epidemic.
Policies and strategies for interventions, however, have largely lagged behind. Most interventions treat sex workers as a focal point of an infection network, while the daily realities of women and men who do sex work are often placed on the back burner of analysis. First, ignoring economic, political and psycho-social factors potentially jeopardizes the success of existing interventions to reduce HIV infections.
Disease control policy that is informed by a more holistic analysis of the risks and needs of sex workers will both maximize policy effectiveness, and expand policy scope to include upholding the basic human rights of sex workers.
This paper uses interviews with female sex workers in rural Kenya to argue for a more holistic analysis in research and policy agendas for understanding risk ecologies that drive sex workers behavior, and realizing the human rights of sex workers worldwide.
Theories from social psychology, social epidemiology, and public health converge on the idea that understanding and influencing individual behavior hinges on an appreciation of the motivating and restraining forces acting on each individual in her immediate environment.
