LIGHT FAQs

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Leading Insights in Global HIV & TB (LIGHT) is an interactive dashboard that uses monitoring, evaluation, and reporting (MER) data and Expenditure Reporting from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to demonstrate PEPFAR and CDC’s impact in the global HIV and tuberculosis (TB) response.

LIGHT uses information from PEPFAR data systems to provide a visual analysis of the progress made toward ending the HIV epidemic in countries supported by PEPFAR. The dashboard highlights the impact of HIV and TB programs over time and compares progress across countries.

In addition to CDC, other U.S. Government agencies have also contributed to PEPFAR’s impact.

By making data easily accessible, CDC is demonstrating our commitment to transparency, accountability, and progress.

The purpose of the LIGHT is to demonstrate how well PEPFAR’s global HIV and TB programs are working using reliable data from countries supported by PEPFAR.

LIGHT uses monitoring, evaluation, and reporting (MER) data as well as Expenditure Reporting data pulled from PEPFAR’s Panorama platform. 

The dashboard provides data on PEPFAR’s impact and CDC’s contributions in PEPFAR-supported countries. These data include country-level and annual trend data for five key PEPFAR outcomes – those  indicators known to have the greatest impact on new annual HIV infections and deaths. These include: 

• Antiretroviral treatment for men, women, and children 
• People who received a positive HIV test result 
• Voluntary medical male circumcisions 
• HIV positive persons screened in care for TB 
• Antiretroviral treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission 

The dashboard also includes data on the amount spent each fiscal year to achieve impact in PEPFAR-supported countries, including the amount spent per person – a good metric for understanding the efficiency of PEPFAR program implementation. To ensure accuracy, this information is only available for those indicators whose data align across PEPFAR monitoring, evaluation, and reporting (MER) and Expenditure Reporting platforms. 

To ensure accurate estimates of spend, LIGHT uses only those indicators with comparable data available on PEPFAR monitoring, evaluation, and reporting (MER) and Expenditure Reporting platforms.

The expenditure data or amount spent each fiscal year excludes any spending on pharmaceutical products.

There are no plans to add additional indicators at this time.

The dashboard will be updated annually during the first quarter.

LIGHT uses information from PEPFAR data systems which include data from all countries CDC and PEPFAR support, worldwide.

CDC’s LIGHT dashboard includes data from 54 countries supported by PEPFAR. These countries include:

 

 

LIGHT uses PEPFAR monitoring, evaluation, and reporting (MER) data starting from 2015, which is the earliest accessible year for data collection in the current PEPFAR data systems. Prior to 2015, PEPFAR used Next Generation Indicators (NGI) which are not comparable with MER data used in this report. For data prior to 2015, visit: PEPFAR Panorama Spotlight.

In 2018, PEPFAR shifted its framework from Expenditure Analysis (EA) to Expenditure Reporting (ER). As part of this change, the way PEPFAR categorized and tracked spending no longer matched the way it was done between 2012 and 2017.

Data was not reported for some countries and years due to changes in program implementation and/or reporting. Specifically, data is unavailable for the following interventions listed below in the countries and years indicated:

– Antiretroviral Treatment for Men, Women, and Children:

• Data is not reported for the following countries and years
• 2015 – Ukraine, West Africa Region, Western Hemisphere Region, Angola, Asia Region, Dominican Republic
• 2016 & 2017 – West Africa Region, Ukraine
• CDC does not report results for this intervention for the West Africa Region

– Antiretroviral Treatment to Prevent Mother-to-child Transmission:

• Data is not reported for the following countries and years:
• Angola: 2016 – 2019
• West Africa Region: 2015 – 2019
• Western Hemisphere Region: 2015 – 2020
• Vietnam does not report antiretroviral treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission as of 2019
• Asia Region does not report antiretroviral treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission as of 2018

– HIV-Positive Persons Screened in Care for Tuberculosis:

• Data on screening of ART patients for TB was collected starting in 2017. Data on this indicator is not available for 2015 or 2016.
• Data is not reported for the following countries and years:
• 2017 – Angola, South Africa, Ukraine, Dominican Republic
• 2019 – Asia Region, Western Hemisphere
• 2021 – Angola
• 2022 – Ukraine

– People who Received a Positive HIV test:

• Data is not reported for the following countries and years:
• 2015 – West Africa Region, Western Hemisphere, Tanzania, Angola (no CDC data available), Asia Region (CDC data is not reported)
• CDC began reporting testing for Ukraine in 2017

– Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC):

• PEPFAR supports VMMC in the following countries: Botswana, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. VMMC data is not available for other countries.
• CDC currently reports VMMC data in all these countries except for Lesotho, Namibia (as of 2020), and South Sudan.

 

LIGHT is for anyone interested in learning about PEPFAR’s impact and CDC’s contributions to progress in the global HIV and TB response. Anyone can use the interactive dashboard to analyze trends in HIV and TB response over time in countries supported by PEPFAR.

The dashboard can also be a powerful tool for HIV advocates, policymakers, and other partners to use in increasing awareness about the impact of U.S. Government’s efforts to end HIV globally, and the success of American investments in PEPFAR since 2003.

Users can download the set of data used to develop visualizations in LIGHT by following the steps below:

• Place cursor on the three dots above each table or chart 
• Select “Export data”
• Select which data you want to export and a desired format
• Click “Export” to access the downloaded report 

For more questions about LIGHT, please contact DGHTCommsRequest@cdc.gov