Violent Conflict and the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa

Abstract

It has been widely speculated that, for a variety of reasons, violent conflict acts as a key contributor to the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Yet, to date, no empirical examination of the conflict-HIV relationship has been conducted. Drawing on work in political science and public health, we set forth a theoretical framework for understanding this potential relationship, and go on to present data on the spatio-temporal dispersion of HIV/AIDS in 43 African countries during the period from 1997 to 2001. We then assess the influence of phenomena related to domestic and international conflict (including refugee flows) on rates of HIV/AIDS infection while controlling for a range of other influential factors. Our analyses support a clear positive relationship between international conflicts and climbing HIV/AIDS rates, as well as significant palliative effects for economic openness, but suggest little net impact of either democratic political systems or refugee flows on the incidence of HIV/AIDS. At the same time, we find a significant decline in the relationship between war-related factors and HIV/AIDS rates, suggesting that broadening international efforts to address the AIDS crisis have been at least somewhat successful.