Behold, a Virgin is with HIV!: Misreporting Sexual Behaviour Among Infected Adolescents

Vidhura Tennekoon and Robert Rosenman

No 2011-8, Working Papers from School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University

Abstract: In four Southern African countries where the HIV prevalence rate is among the highest in the world, 46% of female and 68% of male adolescents infected with HIV report having never engaged in sex. This finding indicates either the dominance of non-sexual modes of HIV transmission or systematic misreporting of sexual behavior in these countries. We use a structural model to estimate the extent of misreporting and find that the true percentages of virgins among the HIV infected adolescent females and males are 23% and 62% respectively. Despite misreporting, sexual modes are not the dominant mode of HIV transmission.

Keywords: misclassification; premarital sex; HIV transmission mode; partial observability; sub Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C39 C51 I10 I18 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2011-03
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: ‘BEHOLD, A VIRGIN IS WITH HIV!’ MISREPORTING SEXUAL BEHAVIOR AMONG INFECTED ADOLESCENTS (2014)
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