The long-term impact of HIV/AIDS on socio-economic status: a comparative analysis of households headed by HIV-positive and HIV-negative individuals in Western Kenya

ABSTRACT

HIV/AIDS is known to have adverse effects on individual and family socio-economic status due to the loss of productive time and over-expenditure in treatment. However, empirical data on how HIV/AIDS affects households’ socio-economic status are insufficient. We linked socio-economic data from a Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) that implements an HIV/AIDS Longitudinal bio-behavioural survey (LBBS) to understand the long-term impact of HIV/AIDS on households’ socio-economic status between 2010 and 2018. We compared changes in socio-economic status between households headed by HIV-negative and -positive individuals. A logistic regression was used to assess factors that influence socio-economic status. The level of education and household size were not significant predictors of households’ socio-economic status. Households headed by HIV-positive individuals could maintain their baseline socio-economic status (unadjusted RRR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.36) but improvement chances were reduced despite a non-significant association (unadjusted RRR = 0.98, 95% CI: 0.80, 1.20). While HIV/AIDS is known to disrupt economic growth, in this setting, being a male household head, old and widowed reduces chances of improved socio-economic status. The elderly people, widows and widowers are disadvantaged. Consequently, there is a need for special programmes, which seek to empower the identified vulnerable groups economically. .

KEYWORDS:

• HIV/AIDS
• socio-economic status
• impact
• household
• Kenya

Acknowledgements

We thank the Gem community, KEMRI/CDC LBBS and HDSS project staff and the Ministry of Health staff for conducting quality control checks on the serosurveys. This article is published with the approval of the Director of the Kenya Medical Research Institute. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.