Will Paying Girls To Attend School Reduce HIV Risk?

Chapel Hill, NC-- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been awarded a $2.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study if monetary incentives and community mobilization can help prevent young women in South Africa from becoming infected with HIV.

Audrey Pettifor, Ph.D., an assistant professor of epidemiology at UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health, is the study's principal investigator. She also is a faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Center, where the study is based.

In South Africa, HIV rates are three times to four times higher in young women than in young men; and by the time a woman turns 21, she has a 1-in-3 chance of being infected. Pettifor's previous research found that young South African women who had not completed high school were almost four times more likely to have HIV than those who had.

The new study will enroll 1,500 low-income households with young women in the ninth grade. A proportion will receive a monthly cash payment if the girl attends school. The study will examine if girls whose families get payments are at lower risk for HIV infection than those who do not.

The payment, of 300 rand ($37) a month, is enough to meet the basic food needs of a family of four for a month.

Researchers also will look at the impact of village-based community mobilization activities to inform young men about risk behaviors and prevention of HIV infection, and address how changing gender norms can create supportive environments that reduce women's risk of infection.

The study is being conducted in partnership with the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit and the Agincourt Health and Population Unit, both of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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