Miguel Reina Ortiz, MD, MSc, MPH, and his faculty mentor Ricardo Izurieta, MD, DrPH, MPH, published “HIV prevalence in the Asia Pacific Region: an ecological approach to inequalities.”  The article is in the Health and Environment Journal, a publication of the School of Health Sciences at University of Sains Malaysia.

Miguel Reina Ortiz, MD, MSc, MPH

Ricardo Izurieta, MD, DrPH, MPH

Lead author Dr. Miguel Reina is a doctoral student studying global communicable disease.  Dr. Izurieta is an associate professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of South Florida College of Public Health.

The research focused on the HIV/AIDS epidemics in the Asia Pacific region which holds the second largest population of people living with HIV/AIDS. Using an ecological analysis, the research suggests that unemployment is inversely associated with HIV prevalence and that HIV prevalence is unequally distributed among countries in this region.

HIV prevalence in the Asia Pacific Region: an ecological approach to inequalities
Miguel Reina Ortiz*1,2,3, Vinita Sharma2, Ricardo Izurieta3
1 Instituto Superior de Postgrados, Universidad Central del Ecuador. Quito – Ecuador.
2 International MPH Program, The Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem – Israel.
3Department of Global Health, College of Public Health,
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL – USA.
*Corresponding author e-mail: mreina@health.usf.edu
Published: 1 December 2012

ABSTRACT: According to UNAIDS 2010, countries located in South and East Asia hold the second largest world population of PLWH. Structural and socioeconomic factors are important in HIV/AIDS epidemic. Despite country data are collected regularly, analytical comparisons for Asia-Pacific Region (APR) are scarce. We present an ecological approach to HIV/AIDS and its predictors in APR. Development and socioeconomic data for South-Asian, South East-Asian, East-Asian and Pacific countries were obtained from the World Bank data catalog (2009). Across countries comparisons were performed by linear regression models (for communication, health system, employment and equity factors) and correlations. Concentration index was also computed. Unemployment was significantly associated with HIV prevalence in the APR after controlling for confounders. Evidence for association with percentage of rural population, external health resources, telephones and women seats in the parliament was weaker (p 0.05 – 0.1). Concentration index was -0.28. We present current data on structural and socioeconomic determinants of HIV epidemics in the APR. Our data suggest that unemployment is an important predictor of HIV prevalence in APR and that other important structural factors might be related. Finally, although not associated with GNI, HIV prevalence showed a negative concentration index indicative of inequalities being present in the region.
Keywords: HIV prevalence, Asia Pacific Region

The entire article can be accessed at http://www.hej.kk.usm.my/pdf/HEJVol.3No.3/Article10.pdf