The Demand for, and Impact of, Learning HIV Status

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2008
Volume: 98
Issue: 5
Pages: 1829-63

Score contribution per author:

8.043 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This paper evaluates an experiment in which individuals in rural Malawi were randomly assigned monetary incentives to learn their HIV results after being tested. Distance to the HIV results centers was also randomly assigned. Without any incentive, 34 percent of the participants learned their HIV results. However, even the smallest incentive doubled that share. Using the randomly assigned incentives and distance from results centers as instruments for the knowledge of HIV status, sexually active HIV-positive individuals who learned their results are three times more likely to purchase condoms two months later than sexually active HIV-positive individuals who did not learn their results; however, HIV-positive individuals who learned their results purchase only two additional condoms than those who did not. There is no significant effect of learning HIV-negative status on the purchase of condoms. (JEL I12, O15)

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:98:y:2008:i:5:p:1829-63
Journal Field
General
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-29