A culturally specific educational program to reduce the risk of HIV and HBV transmission among Ethiopian immigrants to Israel: a preliminary report on training veteran immigrants as health educators.

We describe an educational intervention project that was designed to lower the risk of transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis B virus among the Ethiopian immigrants of the 1991 Operation Solomon. The importance and uniqueness of this program lies in its attempt to integrate into one program two different sets of traditions and concepts, in a culturally acceptable manner to the target population. On the one hand were the traditions of the Ethiopian community and its concepts about health and disease; on the other, were the biomedical model and empowering/participatory methods needed for intervening in this sensitive and difficult area. We also describe a model for training people from within the community to bridge the cultural gap in a relatively short period of time.