The demographic and socioeconomic consequences of HIV/AIDS

Nigerian is home to an estimated 17 million OVC of which 2.23 million were considered to be orphaned by HIV/AIDS. These children face enormous challenges and are at risk. In response, organizations now provide services to them aimed at long-term sustainability of care. Data were collected from a total of 3,118 children supported by 33 organizations in southern Nigeria to examine how these supports are contributing to these children's well-being. In a series of multivariate analysis controlling for non-intervention factors, children provided with psychosocial support were significantly more likely (odds ratio 1.84, p<0.01) to report that they were happy most of the time, those visited at least once at home by volunteers (odds ratio 1.40, p<0.05) and those who received some educational support (odds ratio 1.93, p<0.01) were significantly more likely to report regular school attendance. In-spite of being served by the program children classified as double orphans were less likely than the other categories to report that they were happy (odds ratio 0.36 p<0.01). Several programming bottlenecks contribute to reduce the effects of these initiatives. It was concluded that more vulnerable orphans may require intimate monitoring than is currently the case to increase their benefits and enhance effectiveness of the program in the future.

The objectives of this study are to identify the situation of children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, the children’s primary caregivers, and the needs and the priority of the needs of the children. This study utilized a combination of three methods to collect data such as synthesizing information from available secondary documents, quantitative study and qualitative study.
More than a half of primary caregivers for children infected and affected by HIV are over 60 year-old, bad health, and low income. 94% of households said that their income is not sufficient to spend. 44.4% of households have unstable income. About 24% of children infected and affected by HIV are living in the houses with poor condition. The situation of physical and psychological health of the HIV-infected children is very bad. The biggest difficulty for children affected by HIV/AIDS is access to education because of lack of money to pay tuition fees, and discrimination. The children suffer from the discrimination in both their communities and their families. The first needs of the whole children is educational support, the second is medical examination and treatment support and the third is the support related to nutrition.
Key words: HIV-infected children, children affected by HIV, support needs, primary caregivers, maternal or paternal grandparen

South Africa has one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world. It is estimated that 5.38 million South Africans are living with HIV/AIDS (Statssa 2011). New infections among adults aged 15+ were reportedly 316,900 in 2011 (Statssa 2011). This paper examines South Africa’s mortality due to HIV/AIDS among the youth (15- 34 years old). This age- group is of fundamental importance to the economic and social development of the country and the Integrated Youth Development Strategy of South Africa adds that “many challenges of youth development remain enormous”(NYDA 2012). One of these challenges is the impact of HIV/AIDS on mortality. Data from the national registry of deaths, collated by Stats SA, from 2006- 2009 is used. Life table techniques are employed to quantify and infer the impact of the disease on mortality. Results show by sex, that mortality due to this cause has also remained consistent over the period, with mortality due to HIV/AIDS being higher among females than males. Probability of dying from HIV/AIDS shows that over the period, fluctuations in likelihood of mortality have occurred, but for both males and females (of all age- groups) the chances of dying from this cause have increased in 2009.

Sexual behaviour and HIV prevalence trends reported in overall study populations may mask different sexual behaviour and HIV prevalence changes in specific sub-groups. One group of particular interest are adult migrants from rural households. In this paper, we compare and contrast trends in sexual behaviour and HIV prevalence by residential status in a rural South African community 2005-2011. We use repeated cross-sectional sexual behaviour and HIV data available in the Africa Centre Demographic Information System (ACDIS). Multiple imputation methods and inverse probability weighting are used to adjust for missing data and selection bias respectively. Generally, trends in sexual behaviour indicators are in the same direction for residents and non-residents although sexual risk behaviours remain higher in non-residents compared to residents after adjusting for age. Marked differences are observed in risk behaviours by gender. Non-resident women are more likely than resident women to report condom use at last sex with their regular partner; the opposite is observed in men. There is no significant difference in HIV prevalence by residency status for men or women. In this paper we also discuss the extent to which current residential status may mask complex histories of migration.

Most of the young people are at the risk because they don’t have proper knowledge, health services, and social support which are essentials for sexual and reproductive health. Utilizing the data “Youth in India: Situation and Needs (2006-07)” explore the comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS among male and female with respect to marital status in India. Bi-variate analysis multivariate; PCA and logistic regression methods are used in the study. PCA used for the measuring the women agency. Freedom of movement, decision making and self efficacy are the domain of agency. Linkages between women agency and comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS are positively related to young women. Women belonging to high agency have better comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS comparatively those women belong to lower and medium agency. Knowledge gap between male and female finding shows that, more than 10 years of schooling comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS married Male (75%) and female (72%) where as unmarried male (64%) and unmarried female (59%). Age, current working status, Mass media exposure, wealth index, residence are appeared as a significant predictor for the knowledge of HIV/AIDS. There is a need to make strategic plan, especially for the women for increasing the awareness level of comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS

Women’s HIV status has been shown to affect parental investments in children’s education, but little research has addressed how this relationship is affected by changes in women’s perceived health condition. Using data from a longitudinal survey conducted in southern Mozambique in 2009 and 2011, we study the role of mothers’ self-rated health on the association between perceived HIV status and children’s schooling. More specifically, we investigate how mother's perceived HIV status and their health assessment in 2009 and 2011 affect children's school enrollment and attendance. Results suggest that for mothers who think they are HIV positive, a change in their health status significantly affect children’s school outcomes.

We examined the correlates of frequent alcohol use among men who have sex with men (MSM) to inform designing alcohol abuse interventions. Survey data from 3,880 MSM from three Indian states were analyzed using binary logistic regression. We categorized those who reported consuming alcohol daily or once a week as ‘frequent’ drinkers (40% of the sample) and those who consumed less than a week or did not drink as ‘infrequent’ drinkers. Among frequent drinkers, about two-thirds were above 24 years (66%), most (85%) were literate, about a half (53%) self-identified as Kothi – feminine/receptive, and about three-fourths had paying partners (73%) and were exposed to any HIV prevention interventions (78%). In multivariate analysis, frequent alcohol users were more likely to be non-kothi-identified MSM (AOR 1.35, p<0.001), exposed to HIV intervention (AOR 1.22, p<0.05), and to have paying/paid partners (AOR 1.56, p<0.001); and less likely to use condom with paying male partners (AOR 1.51, p<0.001) and to report being in self-help groups (AOR 0.738, p<0.001). HIV interventions among MSM need to screen for alcohol use and refer frequent alcohol users to alcohol dependence interventions. Future studies need to identify the various causes behind alcohol use among MSM.

HIV/AIDS is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. As number of new HIV infection continues to increase in the region, interventions to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS are needed especially in countries with high prevalence. Recent scientific evidence has shown that circumcision reduces HIV infection among heterosexuals. Swaziland is one of the countries with high HIV prevalence and low male circumcision rates. It is therefore important to examine the association between male circumcision and HIV infection in Swaziland.

The study used the 2006/7 Swaziland Demographic and Health Survey male and HIV datasets. Bivariate logistic regression was used to model the unadjusted, multivariate logistic regression was used to model adjusted association between MC and HIV infection. Results show that out of 2479 respondents that constituted the analysis sample, 91% were uncircumcised and HIV positive, while 8.9% were circumcised and HIV positive. Unadjusted results showed no association between circumcision status and HIV infection while adjusted results showed that male circumcision is protective against HIV infection. This suggests that male circumcision is not consistently associated with HIV infection in the studied population. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Population projections that forecast the future size and age-composition of a country are crucial tools for appropriately planning the future allocation of societal resources. A projection model for countries with generalized HIV epidemics should take into account the future trajectory of the epidemic given the severe effect a generalized epidemic can have on the mortality conditions and composition of a population. We present a model of age-specific mortality as a function of life expectancy, HIV prevalence, and anti-retroviral therapy coverage for the 39 countries of the world experiencing a generalized HIV epidemic. We perform an in-sample validation where results show slight errors for several mortality indicators. Combined with the outputs of existing epidemiological and demographic models, this model makes it possible to estimate future mortality profiles for countries with generalized HIV epidemics.

Despite Uganda’s 30-year acclaimed history of controlling HIV, new infections are continuing to occur, with marked gender inequalities. This is attributed to reliance on a response informed by HIV/AIDS evidence generated through individualistic approaches to AIDS research. There is need to transcend these realms and recognize more the fundamental influence of social factors in women’s increased vulnerability to HIV infection. This research will investigate the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and women’s higher seropositivity. Multilevel analysis will be carried out on data of Uganda Demographic and Health Survey, and Uganda HIV/AIDS Indicator Survey conducted in 2011. The research will analyse this cross sectional data of 32 710 individuals collected in 20 713 households. Multilevel analysis using Windows (MLwiN) software will be used for multilevel modelling. Primary analysis provides evidence that SES may be an important predictor of women’s higher seropositivity. HIV prevalence is higher among females, those in employment, the widowed, the wealthy, and the un-educated. The final analysis is expected to confirm the associations between SES and women’s higher seropositivity, and add to a growing body of evidence that SES plays an influential role in increasing women’s vulnerability to HIV infection.