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Male Migration/Mobility and HIV Among Married Couples: Cross-Sectional Analysis of Nationally Representative Data from India

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Abstract

This paper examines the associations between male migration and mobility with HIV among married couples in India. Cross-sectional analyses of a nationally representative household survey conducted across all 29 states of India from 2005 to 2006 via the National Family Health Survey-3 (NFHS-3) included a subsample of 27,771 married couples who were tested for HIV as a part of their participation. Both bi-variate and multi-variate analyses were conducted. About 0.5% of the total married couples in the current study included an HIV-infected partner; 0.11% were HIV concordant and 0.38% were HIV serodiscordant couples. Adjusted logistic regression analyses demonstrated that HIV infection in couples (seroconcordant or serodiscordant) was significantly more likely among those couples where the man was migrant but not mobile and those couples where the man was migrant as well as mobile, relative to those couples where the man was neither migrant nor mobile. Male migration increases the risk for HIV among married couples in India, largely in the form of serodiscordance in which men are HIV infected. These findings document the need for not only primary prevention efforts to reduce HIV acquisition among migrant male workers, particularly more mobile migrants, but also efforts are needed to reduce subsequent transmission to their wives.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by grant to Dr Saggurti from the Population Council’s HIV and AIDS Program through a project “Prevention of HIV in spousal relationships in India” & a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through Avahan, its India AIDS Initiative. However, the views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the organizations where authors are employed (or) the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. HIV & AIDS Program, Population Council, 142 Golf Links, 1st Floor, New Delhi, 110 003, India

    Niranjan Saggurti

  2. National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai, India

    Saritha Nair

  3. UNAIDS, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Alankar Malviya

  4. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Michele R. Decker

  5. University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

    Jay G. Silverman & Anita Raj

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  1. Niranjan Saggurti
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Correspondence to Niranjan Saggurti.

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Saggurti, N., Nair, S., Malviya, A. et al. Male Migration/Mobility and HIV Among Married Couples: Cross-Sectional Analysis of Nationally Representative Data from India. AIDS Behav 16, 1649–1658 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-011-0022-z

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