Civil war, sexual violence and HIV infections: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Type Working Paper - WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS
Title Civil war, sexual violence and HIV infections: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2011
URL http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2009Papers/201101.pdf
Abstract
This paper estimates the e?ect of con?ict and con?ict-related vulnerability factors, namely sexual violence and economic vulnerability, on HIV prevalence rates. We ?nd that HIV prevalence rates are higher
in con?ict-a?ected regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) than in non-con?ict regions, and that sexual violence and economic vulnerability signi?cantly a?ect HIV prevalence rates. Speci?cally we ?nd that (i) HIV prevalence is 1.64 % higher in war-a?ected zones than elsewhere in the DRC; (ii) the impact of sexual violence in con?ict-a?ected regions is 55 times greater than on average (1.10% versus 0.02 %); (iii) Civil war and sexual violence jointly increase HIV infection rates by 1.45 %; (iv) Finally, economic con?ict-related vulnerability does not explain HIV infection rates. In contrast, a one percent point decrease in the poverty incidence, that is a reduction in economic vulnerability, increases HIV prevalence rates by 0.048 % regardless of the situation of con?ict

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