Tennekoon V, Rosenman R. 'Behold, a virgin is with HIV!' misreporting sexual behavior among infected adolescents.
Health Econ 2014;
23:345-358. [PMID:
23576487 DOI:
10.1002/hec.2918]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2012] [Revised: 11/25/2012] [Accepted: 02/08/2013] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
In four Southern African countries where the HIV prevalence rate is among the highest in the world, 46.4% of a sample of female adolescents infected with HIV report having never engaged in sex. This would indicate either the dominance of non-sexual modes of HIV transmission or rampant misreporting of sexual behavior in the sample. We propose a method to estimate the extent of misreporting and calculate that the true percentages of virgins among the sample of HIV-infected adolescent women is 32.1%. After accounting for misreporting, the contribution of sexual modes of HIV transmission is projected as 50.4%, compared with an estimate of 35.5% if we assume no misreporting.
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