AIDS models grow in use -- and controversy
Barron, T.
Family Planning World 2(6): 8
1992
PMID: 12344627 Document Number: 322629
Policy and program planners use information gained from computer-based statistical models to develop interventions against AIDS. Models of the epidemic's effect, however, show widely differing impacts on population. With the recent entry of a British researcher's view of the impact of AIDS on the population of Africa, the debate between researchers has only intensified. While the World Health Organization (WHO) has conservatively estimated that 40 million people will be infected with HIV by the year 2000, Roy Anderson of the University of London and Robert May of Oxford University expect AIDS to cause population decline in Africa after the year 2002. Major donors and researchers feel that while population growth rates will decline, growth rates will not turn negative due to AIDS. The British researchers, however, do not consider their views to differ greatly from those of US researchers, but they do have problems with overly conservative WHO projections. Their research assumes a higher degree of transmission between core groups of HIV-positive people, including prostitutes, IV drug users, and general populations in Africa's hardest hit areas. They project infection prevalence to reach 50% or more in some areas. Greater levels of prostitution and poverty, as well as the tendency for males to have sex with increasingly younger females, will lead to higher HIV incidence and prevalence in Africa. Family planning experts are voicing their concern over the integrity of these models and question whether they are more than simply educated guesses of what the future holds. Even though projections are uncertain and extremely data-dependent, family planning efforts must continue. Whether or not the AIDS pandemic eventually levels off in certain areas, critics must remember that family planning improves maternal and child health in addition to contributing to lower growth rates and prevent AIDS.