Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access

Abstract

Socioeconomic Impact of HIV/AIDS on Households under Free Antiretroviral Therapy in Preah Sihanouk Province, Cambodia

Marino Nomoto, Saly Saint, Krishna C Poudel, Junko Yasuoka and Masamine Jimba

Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the economic status of HIV-affected households with nonaffected households and explore the economic impact of HIV/AIDS on HIV-affected households under high coverage of free antiretroviral therapies (ART).
Design and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in Preah Sihanouk Province, Cambodia in February and March 2008. We recruited HIV-positive participants (n=285) from a referral hospital and five health centers, and other 285 HIV-negative participants. We interviewed them using a questionnaire and compared the differences of economic status such as household income, expenditure, assets as well as medical cost, education cost, transportation cost for health services and funeral cost between the households of HIV-positive participants (HIV-positive households) and the households of HIV-negative participants (HIV-negative households).
Results: Compared to the negative households, the HIV-positive households were more likely to have lower household income (p<0.001), household expenditure (p<0.001), assets (p<0.001), education cost (p=0.001) and medical cost (p<0.001). Among the HIV-positive households, the proportion of medical cost to the household expenditure was 1.3%, which was lower than that of the HIV-negative households. On the contrary, the economic burden for transportations for medical service and funeral cost was much higher among the HIV-positive households compared to the HIV-negative households.
Conclusions: The HIV-positive households had worse economic status compared to the negative households. Though medical cost was lower than that of the negative households under high coverage of free ART, the HIVpositives were still suffering from high economic burden in non health related living cost. From the results of our study, we suggest that the government and global agencies should support their living beyond health.