Strategies for partner notification for sexually transmitted diseases.

Partner notification has been practiced for decades, with substantial resources directed towards it, and with little evidence on whether it has made a public health impact on disease transmission. Most of the evaluations were not randomized controlled trials, and were conducted in the United States, prior to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. There are reasons to question whether partner notification for gonorrhoea and chlamydia is applicable to HIV. It is also questionable whether interventions for the developed world are applicable to the developing world.