Village Sexual Norms and Links between Religion and HIV Infection Risk in Rural Malawi

Mark Regnerus, University of Texas at Austin
Jenny Trinitapoli, University of Texas at Austin

HIV infection rates in southern Africa range from just under 40 percent in Botswana and Zimbabwe to about five percent in Uganda. In Malawi, the national prevalence of HIV is approximately 15 percent; there is, however, wide variation across testing sites, suggesting that some communities have been more successful in avoiding infection than others. Using a sample of married men and women from rural Malawi, we examine whether or not individuals’ HIV status and risk behavior are associated with religious affiliation or with religious involvement, and whether their effects are conditioned by local prevalence rates and village norms about the permissibility of extramarital sex. We analyze data from the third wave of the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project, which was collected in 2004.