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Full-Text Articles in Epidemiology
Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Do Not Explain The Hiv Epidemics In Africa: A Systematic Review Of The Evidence, Larry Sawers, Eileen Stillwaggon
Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Do Not Explain The Hiv Epidemics In Africa: A Systematic Review Of The Evidence, Larry Sawers, Eileen Stillwaggon
Economics Faculty Publications
The notion that concurrent sexual partnerships are especially common in sub-Saharan Africa and explain the region’s high HIV prevalence is accepted by many as conventional wisdom. In this paper, we evaluate the quantitative and qualitative evidence offered by the principal proponents of the concurrency hypothesis and analyze the mathematical model they use to establish the plausibility of the hypothesis.
We find that research seeking to establish a statistical correlation between concurrency and HIV prevalence either finds no correlation or has important limitations. Furthermore, in order to simulate rapid spread of HIV, mathematical models require unrealistic assumptions about frequency of sexual …