Cash payments help cut HIV infection rate in young women, study finds, By Sarah Boseley, February 14, 2012, The Guardian: “Regular small cash payments to girls and young women can enable them to resist the attentions of older men and avoid HIV infection, according to a new study. Girls and young women are at the greatest risk of HIV infection in endemic countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, between a quarter and a third have the virus by the time they reach their early 20s. But educating girls about risks and promoting condom use has had little impact in countries where they are struggling with poor education, low status and poverty, and where older men with money offer one of the few ways out of financial difficulties. A team of researchers from the World Bank, University of California at San Diego and George Washington University in the US carried out a randomised controlled trial in Malawi to find out whether monthly payments to schoolgirls and their families would help change the girls’ behaviour and safeguard their health…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty