Table 1 Intervention components
Intervention component | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Actor | People or organization responsible for carrying out the designated intervention action | For example, in a peer support intervention, whether or not the peer is a person living with HIV him or herself is an important aspect of being a peer |
Action | The specific set of steps required for carrying out the intervention | For example, a study quantifying the effect of a decentralized system vs a non-decentralized system may not specify how decentralization occurred. |
Dose | The frequency with which intervention components are delivered to target population | For example, counseling interventions could vary by the duration of each session, the frequency that sessions are delivered, and the total number of sessions |
Temporality | The timing of intervention action as related to other underlying processes | For an intervention to accelerate ART initiation: patients attending an HIV clinic undergo brief counseling and are offered to start ART on the date of the first clinic visit |
Action target | The capability, motivation, or opportunity of an individual or organization which the action is intended to modify | HIV testing: First, the government launches a community-based HIV testing campaign. Second, an outreach team attached to the testing campaign offers community members transportation to the campaign on a free bus. Finally, a lottery is being held at the campaign and one person who receives HIV testing will win a bicycle at the health campaign. In this example, the action target of the campaign itself is that the intervention creates an opportunity for HIV testing. The action target of the free bus is the patient’s capability to attend the campaign. The action target of the lottery is the patient’s motivation to attend the campaign |
Behavioral target | The particular behavior the intervention action is intended to elicit as a result of its action on the action target (i.e., modification of capability, motivation, or opportunity of the targeted individual or organization). This may be identical to the cascade outcome or may be an additional behavior proximal to the cascade outcome | ART initiation: an implementation intervention to address this cascade gap could act on a patient behavioral target to encourage them to make a verbal request of ART from providers once they know they are eligible. Another intervention could work on a behavioral target in the providers so that they offer or prescribe ART more readily |