Description:

Abstract: Thirty years into the AIDS epidemic, one of the central puzzles yet to be explained is the heterogeneity in overall AIDS prevalence between and within countries. During the peak of the African epidemic, adult HIV prevalence in small, ethnically homogenous countries like Swaziland, Botswana, and Lesotho ranged between 20 and 30%. At this same time, Ethiopia (in the east) and Benin (in the west) had prevalence levels in the 1–2% range, even dipping below 1% in Senegal and Niger. While commonly overlooked, within country variation is equally dramatic. For example, although national prevalence in South Africa is 16.9%, it exceeds 35% in Kwazulu-Natal Province (UNAIDS 2008). Likewise, a population-based sero-prevalence survey in a single area of Kenya’s Nyanza Province in 2001 showed an HIV prevalence in excess of 20% (Auvert et al. 2001) while Kenya’s own National AIDS Control Council estimated 2006 adult prevalence in Eastern Province at 2.8% and 1.1% in sparsely settled North Eastern Province (NACC 2007). The same high levels of within-country variation can be found in many sub-Saharan countries, even “low prevalence” ones. Among certain regions and subpopulations in Ghana (national prevalence <2% in 2007), for example, prevalence exceeds 8% (USAID 2010). In this paper, we explore one possible set of explanations for this phenomenon: the extent to which these differences are the product of religious and ethnic diversity. Two discrete sets of questions arise from this investigation: whether a generalized AIDS epidemic became established more easily in religiously and ethnically homogenous societies or areas, relative to their heterogeneous counterparts? And whether, once established, levels of religious and ethnic diversity affected the spread of HIV within and across countries.

Bio: Jenny Trinitapoli is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, Religious Studies, and Demography at Penn State University. She earned her PhD (2007) from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was also an active member of the Population Research Center. Her research on the interplay between religious and demographic processes and outcomes tends to focus on the context of sub-Saharan Africa. Jenny’s research on religion has appeared in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Demographic Research, among other outlets. Her book Religion and AIDS in Africa (with Alexander Weinreb) has been called “the first comprehensive empirical account of the impact of religion on the AIDS epidemic.