ABSTRACT
The immediate relevance of child-spacing or family-planning programs to AIDS/STDs efforts is that both rely partly on barrier contraceptive methods such as the condom, sponge, and diaphragm. Spermicides are also promoted for family planning and are lately thought to provide protection against STDs and AIDS, at least when used in conjunction with male or female barrier methods. Both AIDS/STD and family-planning programs also attempt to modify people's sexual behavior in similar ways. And not only are some of the solutions shared; the problem areas of excessive fertility (lack of responsible child spacing) and HIV/ STD transmission are themselves linked. For example, infertility may result from STDs, and when both STDs and infertility are widespread, there may be greater resistance to child spacing and more pressure for women to have more children more quickly. To the extent that traditional healers are enlisted in collaborative family-planning programs, the impact on HIV and STD transmission as well as child spacing should be positive and, I think, significant.
