HIV Development Assistance and Adult Mortality in Africa

2012
Author(s)
Eran Bendavid
Jay Bhattacharya
Charles Holmes
Grant Parker
Publisher
Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 307 No. 19
HIV Development Assistance and Adult Mortality in Africa

"The effect of global health initiatives on population health is uncertain. Between 2003 and 2008, the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest initiative ever devoted to a single disease, operated intensively in 12 African focus countries. The initiative's effect on all-cause adult mortality is unknown.

To determine whether PEPFAR was associated with relative changes in adult mortality in the countries and districts where it operated most intensively.

Using person-level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys, we conducted cross-country and within-country analyses of adult mortality (annual probability of death per 1000 adults between 15 and 59 years old) and PEPFAR's activities. Across countries, we compared adult mortality in 9 African focus countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) with 18 African nonfocus countries from 1998 to 2008. We performed subnational analyses using information on PEPFAR's programmatic intensity in Tanzania and Rwanda. We employed difference-in-difference analyses with fixed effects for countries and years as well as personal and time-varying area characteristics." -- from the authors