Individual, Household, and Community Factors Associated with Child Vulnerabilities in HIV/AIDS Affected Countries

Florence Nyangara, Futures Group International

The high burden of HIV/AIDS has contributed to the drastic increase of orphans and children made vulnerable due to weakened household and community support systems due to the disease. This paper examines the relationship between individual, household, and community factors and child vulnerabilities in two Sub-Saharan Africa countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates. The understanding of these vulnerability factors is important and will allow policymakers to focus resources to the most vulnerable. Data from the Demographic and Health surveys (DHS) for two countries, Mozambique (2004) and Kenya (2003) were used for the analysis. The findings from this study show that in both countries, sub-region, residence, and household socioeconomic status are key vulnerability factors that are associated with child outcomes in education, health, and nutritional status. A multivariate analysis shows that controlling for other factors, some sub-regions, urban residence, poverty, and individual factors including age and sex continue to contribute to child vulnerabilities.