This paper explores HIV/AIDS stigma in the socio-cultural context of Nakhon Ratchasima Province in the northeastern region of Thailand. Action research was used to develop a community participation intervention. The intervention was implemented in one village over a period of eight months. We describe the intervention and then test its effect on HIV/AIDS knowledge and HIV/AIDS stigma using a non-equivalent pre-test-post-test control group design. Analysis of co-variance confirms that, controlling for initial levels of HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigma, the intervention had a significant effect on HIV/AIDS knowledge score (p<0.01) and HIV/AIDS stigma score (p<0.01). Participatory observations by the researchers on villagers' perceptions and behaviour were consistent with the quantitative results. These results suggest that community interventions which empower the community, combined with a financial contribution to reduce resource constraints, are a useful and effective means of increasing interaction between people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and other community members, increasing tolerance and reducing HIV/AIDS stigma.

The importance of social media for election campaigning has received a lot of attention recently. Using data from the 2011 New Zealand General Election and the size of candidates' social media networks on Facebook and Twitter, we investigate whether social media is associated with election votes and probability of election success. Overall, our results suggest that there is a statistically significant relationship between the size of online social networks and election voting and election results. However, the size of the effect is small and it appears that social media presence will therefore only make a difference in closely contested elections.

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This paper estimates the marginal willingness-to-pay for attributes of a hypothetical HIV vaccine using discrete choice modeling.We use primary data from 326 respondents from Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2008-2009, selected using purposive, venue-based sampling across two strata. Participants completed a structured questionnaire and full rank discrete choice modelling task administered using computer-assisted personal interviewing. The choice experiment was used to rank eight hypothetical HIV vaccine scenarios, with each scenario comprising seven attributes (including cost) each of which had two levels. The data were analyzed in two alternative specifications: (1) best-worst; and (2) full-rank, using logit likelihood functions estimated with custom routines in Gauss matrix programming language.In the full-rank specification, all vaccine attributes are significant predictors of probability of vaccine choice. The biomedical attributes of the hypothetical HIV vaccine (efficacy, absence of VISP, absence of side effects, and duration of effect) are the most important attributes for HIV vaccine choice. On average respondents are more than twice as likely to accept a vaccine with 99% efficacy, than a vaccine with 50% efficacy. This translates to a willingness to pay US$383 more for a high efficacy vaccine compared with the low efficacy vaccine.Knowledge of the relative importance of determinants of HIV vaccine acceptability is important to ensure the success of future vaccination programs. Future acceptability studies of hypothetical HIV vaccines should use more finely-grained biomedical attributes, and could also improve the external validity of results by including more levels of the cost attribute.

The relationships between outlet density and violence vary significantly across space for off-licences and restaurants/cafés. These results suggest that in order to minimise alcohol-related harms, such as violence, locally specific policy interventions are likely to be necessary. [Cameron MP, Cochrane W, Gordon C, Livingston M. Alcohol outlet density and violence: A geographically weighted regression approach. Drug Alcohol Rev 2016;35:280-288].