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Further interventions are needed to provide support (physical, psychological, technological, economic) to patients and caregivers. Studies showed that patients and caregivers have many physical, psychological, and economic unmet needs, with high rates of depression and poverty, and in some cases, rely on their young children or relatives to provide care with no outside support. Some studies show that caregivers suffer from stigma attached to caring for someone HIV-positive. [See also %{s:67}] Some studies showed that women have a lower quality of life than men. A study in a high HIV prevalence area showed that for women, lack of control in sexual decision-making was associated with depression, while for men, intergenerational sex was associated with depression.
Effective programs (as described here) must be expanded to reach many more young people, especially young people who are most neglected such as very young adolescents, out-of-school youth, young people living with HIV, homeless and rural youth, as well as lesbian, MSM and transgender adolescents and other key populations. [See also %{s:73}] Studies found adolescent girls did not know that anal sex increased the risk of HIV acquisition, did not use condoms, and did not know that oral sex carries a low risk of HIV acquisition. Out-of school-youth were at high risk of early sexual debut. A scan of sex education curricula found that information on key aspects of sex such as information on condoms in addition to negative, fear-based curriculum were prevalent and that less than half of out of school youth were reached. In some countries, pornography was the principal source of information about sex and pornography often depicts condom-free sex and gender inequality, with men in domineering roles (Day, 2014).
Adolescents living with HIV need information and services through adolescent-friendly HIV services on a number of topics, including disclosure, safer sex, contraception, safe motherhood and gender-based violence. Studies found that health providers were unprepared to discuss HIV and contraception with adolescents who acquired HIV through perinatal transmission, despite the fact that significant numbers of these adolescents were already sexually active. Another study found that these adolescents need skills to disclose their serostatus to sexual partner. WHO recommends that perinatally infected adolescents be advised of their positive serostatus by age 6 (WHO, 2013) but there is little guidance on disclosure for adolescents. Facilitated disclosure by parents and providers to adolescents living with HIV may lead to higher retention in HIV care (Arrive et al., 2012). Parents living with HIV whose adolescents may be living with HIV also need assistance to disclose to their adolescents, as parents fear rejection from their children. Positive health dignity and prevention interventions can help people living with HIV lead healthy lives and reduce HIV transmission, but tailored interventions for adolescents and their parents have not been evaluated for effectiveness, although a trial is currently ongoing (Cunningham, 2015; Mofeson and Cotton, 2013). One study found that 29% of young women aged 16 to 24 living with HIV reported being forced to have sex. No validated curriculum that was shown to be effective for reducing unsafe sex among adolescents living with HIV was found, although some manuals have been developed (Parker et al., 2013c; UNESCO and GNP+, 2012).
Interventions are needed to reduce barriers to treatment adherence and to understand how these differ by sex. Increased research is needed to understand the most effective strategies to increase adherence. Studies found that a number of barriers that impact treatment adherence, such as violence, stigma, transport costs, childcare, forced migration, the need for food, the need to hide their medication from their male partners and changes in body image. Screening and treatment for depression may improve adherence, although some studies have shown mixed results. A review found that adherence differs by sex, but with little disaggregation for which factors affect women. Data collection should be more nuanced and not assume that women fall into static groups. A study of people living with HIV who disengaged from ART found that harsh and disrespectful treatment by providers, as well as competing work and livelihood demands, lack of funds for transport, etc. made attendance at ART clinics challenging.
Mitigating Risk
Young People Need Information
"I want to know if I can have a boyfriend because every time I ask my mum she tells me not to. I would also love to learn about safe sex and safe motherhood (14 year old adolescent girl living with HIV, Zambia cited in Mburu et al., 2013).
A review of the global literature on adolescents found that "there is a significant unmet need for information, education, an...
Hepatitis
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, most often caused by a virus. The most common types of viruses are hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, hepatitis D and hepatitis E. "Hepatitis A and E are typically caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water and are not known to cause chronic liver disease" (WHO, 2010c). A vaccine exists for hepatitis A and a meta-analysis of eight studies fr...
Male and Female Condom Use
The role of condom use in prevention of sexual transmission of HIV is clear. According to the WHO and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, male condoms that are intact are essentially impermeable to even the smallest sexually transmitted virus (UNAIDS, 2004). The effectiveness of male condoms has been shown to be between 8095 percent, depending on how correctly they are used (Weller and Davi...
Transforming Gender Norms
Gender norms stand in the way of reducing HIV; indeed, a recent study states that, "The global HIV pandemic in its current form cannot be effectively arrested without fundamental transformation of gender norms" (Dunkle and Jewkes, 2007: 173). As former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated: "Achieving our objectives for global development will demand accelerated efforts to achieve gend...
Prevention and Services for Adolescents and Young People
The interventions in this section should also be viewed in conjunction with other topics where young women are included. Studies with adolescent-specific data are also included in the following sections: %{c:5}; %{c:7}; %{c:11}; %{c:13}; %{c:17}; %{c:21}; and %{c:23}.
HIV among adolescents is a growing concern. UNAIDS notes that adolescent girls and young women are a key population in danger o...
Partner Reduction
Multiple sexual partnerships have long been a concern in HIV prevention programming, which has focused on partner reduction. Multiple partnerships bring increased risk of HIV acquisition: A meta-analysis of 68 epidemiological studies from 1986 to 2006 with 17,000 HIV-positive people and 73,000 HIV-negative people found that women who reported three or more sex partners had three times as much l...
Antenatal Care - Testing and Counseling
In 2007, only an estimated 18% of pregnant women were offered HIV tests (ITPC, 2009). "The purpose of antenatal VCT should be to help a woman prepare for a possible positive HIV diagnosis [and] to provide her with information about PMTCT options" (De Bruyn and Paxton, 2005: 145). In developing country settings, between eight and ten percent of women report having received PMTCT interventions (P...
Increasing Access to Services
While the literature on access to HIV services by adolescents is limited, the literature on access to sexual and reproductive health services more broadly demonstrates that youth-friendly approaches can increase use of reproductive health care services by female adolescents (Gay et al., 2015). Young peoples service needs are frequently overlooked in HIV programming that is not specifically for ...
