Changing attitudes and beliefs towards a woman’s right to protect against HIV risk in Malawi

Abstract

Female empowerment and positive attitudes towards women’s rights in sexual relationships have been found to be key elements of successful behaviour-based HIV prevention programmes. However, HIV prevention programmes that do not specifically engage with gender issues may also affect attitudes and beliefs towards women’s rights within sexual relationships. Using data from the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health we compare measures of female empowerment and changing gender norms between intervention participants and non-participants. Results suggest that female intervention participants were more likely than non-participants to believe that: (1) women have more rights within sexual relationships in general and (2) women have the right to protect themselves against HIV risk (indicating possible increases in female self-efficacy in making HIV prevention decisions). Male intervention participants showed no substantial positive change in attitudes towards women’s rights. These results highlight an important positive effect of HIV prevention programmes on women’s attitudes towards their own rights.

Keywords:

• HIV prevention
• behavioural intervention
• women’s rights
• female self-efficacy
• Malawi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the US National Institute of Child Health and Development [grant numbers R03 HD058976, R21 HD050652, R01 HD044228, and R01 HD053781]; the National Institute on Aging [grant number P30 AG12836]; the Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Security at the University of Pennsylvania, and the US National Institute of Child Health and Development Population Research Infrastructure Program [grant number R24 HD-044964], all at the University of Pennsylvania. This work was also supported by the University of Rochester Center for AIDS Research [grant number NIH P30AI078498].