The Relationship between AIDS/TB Mortality and Migration in the Context of Other Causes of Death in Rural South Africa

Studies have examined the AIDS/TB Mortality Consequence of Migration but ignored other causes. We recognise that migrants could die of causes that can preclude AIDS/TB. Therefore, this paper employs a competing risk technique developed by Gray and Fine to investigate how the relationship between migration and AIDS/TB has evolved between 1994 and 2009 in South Africa in the context of other diseases and how the relationship compares with that of migration and other causes of death

The results indicate a changing relationship between migration and AIDS/TB mortality at each period of analysis . Migrants have greater odds of dying of AIDS/TB compared to their non-migrants counterparts. However, the gap became narrow at the later period. It is shown also that migration affects all causes of death

While we expect migration to influence AIDS/TB epidemic the way it did (increasing then decreasing contribution due to the availability of ART at the population level) but what is probably much less expected was its role on "silent" NCDs and other causes.