Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:35:14.256Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

INTERACTION BETWEEN HIV AWARENESS, KNOWLEDGE, SAFE SEX PRACTICE AND HIV PREVALENCE: EVIDENCE FROM BOTSWANA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

RANJAN RAY
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
KOMPAL SINHA
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

Summary

This paper makes methodological and empirical contributions to the study of HIV in the context of Botswana, a country with high HIV prevalence. Comparable evidence is presented from India to put the Botswana results in perspective. The results point to the strong role played by affluence and education in increasing HIV knowledge, promoting safe sex and reducing HIV prevalence. The study presents African evidence on the role played by the empowerment of women in promoting safe sex practices such as condom use. The lack of significant association between HIV prevalence and safe sex practice points to the danger of HIV-infected individuals spreading the disease through multiple sex partners and unprotected sex. This danger is underlined by the finding that females with multiple sex partners are at higher risk of being infected with HIV. These results take on special policy significance in the context of Botswana, where the issue of multiple sex partners has not been adequately addressed in the programme to contain the spread of HIV.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkinson, A. B. (1970) On the measurement of inequality. Journal of Economic Theory 2, 244263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, K. (2006) Gender and say: a model of household behaviour with endogenously determined balance of power. Economic Journal 116, 558580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, S. & Griffiths, P. L. (2007) Female autonomy as a contributing factor to women's HIV-related knowledge and behaviour in three culturally contrasting states in India. Journal of Biosocial Science 39, 557573.Google Scholar
Brigaldino, G. (2002) Living with AIDS: the experience of Botswana. URL: http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-hiv/article_798.jsp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deb, P., Gallo, W. T., Ayyagari, P., Fletcher, J. M. & Sindelar, J. L. (2009) Job Loss: Eat, Drink and Try to be Merry? Working Paper 15122, NBER, Cambridge, MA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deb, P. & Trivedi, P. (1997) Demand for medical care by the elderly: A Finite Mixture Approach. Journal of Applied Econometrics 12(3), 313336.Google Scholar
Dinkelman, T., Levinsohn, J. & Majelantle, R. (2006) When Knowledge is not Enough: HIV/AIDS Information and Risky Behaviour in Botswana. Working Paper 12418, NBER, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Garnett, G. P. & Anderson, R. M. (1996) Antiviral therapy and the transmission dynamics of HIV-1. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 37, 135150.Google Scholar
Heald, S. (2002) It's never as easy as ABC: understandings of AIDS in Botswana. African Journal of AIDS Research 1, 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heald, S. (2006) Abstain or die: the development of HIV/AIDS policy in Botswana. Journal of Biosocial Science 38, 2941.Google Scholar
Laird, N. (1978) Non-parametric maximum likelihood estimation of a mixing distribution. Journal of the American Statistical Association 73, 805811.Google Scholar
Lancaster, G., Maitra, P. & Ray, R. (2006) Endogenous intra-household balance of power and its impact on expenditure patterns: evidence from India. Economica 73, 435460.Google Scholar
Ray, R. & Sinha, K. (2010) Measuring the multi-dimensional knowledge deprivation of HIV/AIDS: a new approach with Indian evidence on its magnitude and determinants. Journal of Biosocial Science 43(6), 657684.Google Scholar
Schoepf, B. S. (2003) Uganda; lessons for AIDS control in Africa. Review of African Political Economy 30(98), 553572.Google Scholar
Schuler, S. R. & Hashemi, S. M. (1994) Credit programs, women's empowerment, and contraceptive use in rural Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning 25(2), 6576.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seidel, G. (2003) HIV/AIDS: behind the rhetoric, whose interests are being served? Review of African Political Economy 30(98), 664670.Google Scholar
Sharma, K. C. & Seleke, T. L. (2008) HIV/AIDS in Africa: Botswana's response to the pandemic. In Pinkowski, J. (ed.) Disaster Management Handbook. Taylor and Francis, New York, pp. 321335.Google Scholar
Vyas, S. & Kumaranayeke, L. (2006) Constructing socio-economic status indices: how to use principal component analysis. Health Policy and Planning 21(6), 459468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar