Inequality Decomposition and Health Access Among Those Living With HIV/AIDS in Nigeria

Henry Asogwa , The University of Nigeria Nsukka(UNN)

The concern that HIV remains a major global public health issue is worrisome considering the alarming statistics that an estimated 39.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2023, of which 65% are in the WHO African Region is disturbing. Currently, inequalities in healthcare access in developing countries receive a lot of attention considering how women and young girls have continued to be affected by the financial burden of treatment costs in many developing countries. Hence this motivated this study to investigate the proportion of proportions of poverty and inequality affecting HIV/AIDS patients in rural and urban areas in Nigeria, the levels of gender disparities in healthcare access among HIV/AIDS patients in rural and urban areas in Nigeria, and the extent poverty has widened inequality to a specific gender vulnerability to HIV infection in Nigeria using the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2018. Interestingly, adopting the concentration index by making use of the convenient covariance, the Gini Decomposition, and the logit estimation approach demonstrated that inequalities and poverty have continued to widen the financial burden of women and young girls in rural areas compared to urban households in Nigeria.

Keywords: Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Health and Morbidity, Gender Dynamics, Econometrics

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