Futures Group

Resources

Futures Group conducts research and provides technical assistance designed to assist public health professionals, policymakers, trainers, the private sector, and other stakeholders address critical conditions that compromise the well-being of people around the world. The resources available here offer advice, guidelines, and data to help improve and strengthen public health programs.

These resources include publications, training manuals, toolkits, technical papers, and project reports that cover a wide range of topics.

Futures Group has designed a series of software applications to support effective policymaking. Our various computer models have been created to analyze existing information, helping policymakers determine the impact and effectiveness of specific programs. Our software and many of our publications are available to download free of charge.

Futures Group International was reinstated in September 2008. Some software and publications produced prior to the name change may reference Constella Futures rather than Futures Group International.

Male Circumcision Decisionmakers Tool

The Male Circumcision (MC) Decisionmakers Tool is an Excel-based model that estimates the impact and cost of scaling up male circumcision services as an HIV prevention intervention. The model considers different policy options including target populations (all adult males, young males, adolescents, neonates, high-risk males, etc.) and different rates of scaling up MC coverage. Outputs of the model include cost per MC performed, number of HIV infections averted, and cost per infection averted. Total costs can be based on detailed facility-level inputs on the costs of service provision or on assumptions about the average costs per male circumcision performed. Read More & Download

Family-Friendly Workplace Model

The Family-Friendly Workplace (FFW) Model is designed to help managers analyze the costs and advantages of providing family-friendly benefits through the workplace. Family-friendly workplace policies provide benefits such as on-site health services, childcare, family planning, maternity leave, transportation, and flexible scheduling. Read More & Download

Spectrum

Spectrum is a suite of policy models that make use of a unified set of Windows-based commands that can be easily learned. The models are used to project the need for FP/RH, MH, and HIV/AIDS services. Most models are available in English, French, and Spanish. Some are also available in Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian. Each model includes a detailed user manual that not only describes how to use the software but also includes sections on data sources, interpretation and use of the results, a tutorial, and a description of the methodology. The models included in the Spectrum system are: DemProj, FamPlan, AIM, RAPID, Ben-Cost, NewGen, PMTCT, Safe Motherhood, and Condom Requirements. Allocate is a tool used to relate program actions to goals and summarizes output from other Spectrum models. Read More & Download

Goals Model

The Goals Model helps efforts to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic by showing how the amount and allocation of funding is related to the achievement of national goals, such as the reduction of HIV prevalence and expansion of care and support. Read More & Download

RAPID

A spreadsheet model to prepare projections of the social and economic impacts of high fertility and rapid population growth. Read More & Download

RAPID Presentation

The RAPID presentation is a Microsoft PowerPoint file that contains a typical RAPID presentation. The presentation is designed to illustrate the socio-economic impacts of high fertility and rapid population growth. The presentation is used to encourage policy dialogue about the need for effective family planning and reproductive health programs. The projections in the presentation are based on calculations made using either the RAPID module of Spectrum or the spreadsheet version of RAPID. This typical presentation can serve as the starting point for developing a custom presentation for a particular country or region. Presentations should always be customized to use local data, address local conditions and stimulate dialogue about the most appropriate response. Read More & Download

EPP: Estimation and Projection Package

The Estimation and Projection Package (EPP) is used to estimate and project adult HIV prevalence from surveillance data. The input to EPP is surveillance data from various sites and years showing HIV prevalence among pregnant women. EPP is used to fit a simple epidemic model to data from urban and rural sites. The prevalence projection produced by EPP can be transferred to Spectrum to calculate the number of people infected, AIDS cases, AIDS-related deaths,etc. The EPP model and manual in English, French, Spanish and Russian can be downloaded from the UNAIDS website. Read More & Download

AIM-B: AIDS Impact Model for Business

AIM-B is an economic and demographic model designed to help managers analyze how HIV/AIDS is affecting their businesses and project how it will affect them in the future. This simplified on-line version of AIM-B estimates the main direct costs of HIV/AIDS in health, recruitment, and benefit costs. It does not estimate the epidemic’s affect on productivity, labor relations, workforce morale, or absenteeism. Read More & Download

Resource Needs Model

The Resource Needs Model is an Excel worksheet for calculating the funding required for an expanded response to HIV/AIDS at the national level. The worksheet contains three submodels: the prevention model, which calculates the cost of prevention interventions; the care and treatment model, which estimates the cost of care and treatment programs; and the orphan support model, which calculates the cost of interventions to support children orphaned by AIDS. The program and manual are available in English, Spanish, and French. Read More & Download