Working Paper: NBER ID: w23403
Authors: Adrienne M. Lucas; Nicholas L. Wilson
Abstract: The single largest item in the United States foreign aid health budget is antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Many supply- and demand-side factors in sub-Saharan Africa could cause smaller than expected epidemiological effects of this at scale drug provision. We provide what appears to be the first quasi-experimental evidence on the effect of at scale drug provision in a poor country, using the phased roll-out of ART in Zambia, a setting where approximately 1 in 6 adults are HIV positive. Combining anthropometric data from national household surveys and a spatially-based triple difference specification, we find that local ART introduction increased the weight of high HIV likelihood adult women. This finding from a clinically difficult setting suggest that the generalized challenges of scalability of ART for adult health in sub-Saharan Africa are surmountable.
Keywords: antiretroviral therapy; HIV/AIDS; public health; Zambia; foreign aid
JEL Codes: H51; I12; I15; I18; O12; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| local ART introduction (Z11) | increase in the weight of high HIV likelihood women (I14) |
| local ART introduction (Z11) | improved health outcomes (I14) |
| increase in the weight of high HIV likelihood women (I14) | improved health outcomes (I14) |
| local ART introduction (Z11) | no significant change in height (O41) |