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Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries

In the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, caregivers are struggling to support HIV-affected children. For reasons of equity and efficiency, their needs can be best met through strong social protections and policies. This paper presents a conceptual framework to help address the needs of HIV-affected car...

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Autores principales: Kidman, Rachel, Heymann, Jody
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991222/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27392009
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2016.1176685
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author Kidman, Rachel
Heymann, Jody
author_facet Kidman, Rachel
Heymann, Jody
author_sort Kidman, Rachel
collection PubMed
description In the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, caregivers are struggling to support HIV-affected children. For reasons of equity and efficiency, their needs can be best met through strong social protections and policies. This paper presents a conceptual framework to help address the needs of HIV-affected caregivers and to prioritize policies. We describe the needs that are common across diverse caregiving populations (e.g., economic security); the needs which are intensified (e.g., leave to care for sick children) or unique to providing care to HIV-affected children (e.g., ARV treatment). The paper then explores the types of social policies that would facilitate families meeting these needs. We outline a basic package of policies that would support HIV-affected families, and would meet goals agreed to by national governments. We examine the availability of these policies in 25 highly affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of countries guarantee short-term income protection during illness, free primary school, and educational inclusion of children with special needs. However, there are significant gaps in areas critical to family economic security and healthy child development. Fewer than half of the countries we analyzed guarantee a minimum wage that will enable families to escape poverty; only six have eliminated tuition fees for secondary school; and only three offer paid leave to care for sick children. Filling these policy gaps, as well as making mental health and social services more widely available, is essential to support caregiving by families for HIV-affected children. As part of the HIV agenda, the global community can help national governments advance towards their policy targets. This would provide meaningful protection for families affected by HIV, as well as for millions of other vulnerable families and children across the region.
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spelling pubmed-49912222016-09-06 Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries Kidman, Rachel Heymann, Jody AIDS Care Articles In the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, caregivers are struggling to support HIV-affected children. For reasons of equity and efficiency, their needs can be best met through strong social protections and policies. This paper presents a conceptual framework to help address the needs of HIV-affected caregivers and to prioritize policies. We describe the needs that are common across diverse caregiving populations (e.g., economic security); the needs which are intensified (e.g., leave to care for sick children) or unique to providing care to HIV-affected children (e.g., ARV treatment). The paper then explores the types of social policies that would facilitate families meeting these needs. We outline a basic package of policies that would support HIV-affected families, and would meet goals agreed to by national governments. We examine the availability of these policies in 25 highly affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of countries guarantee short-term income protection during illness, free primary school, and educational inclusion of children with special needs. However, there are significant gaps in areas critical to family economic security and healthy child development. Fewer than half of the countries we analyzed guarantee a minimum wage that will enable families to escape poverty; only six have eliminated tuition fees for secondary school; and only three offer paid leave to care for sick children. Filling these policy gaps, as well as making mental health and social services more widely available, is essential to support caregiving by families for HIV-affected children. As part of the HIV agenda, the global community can help national governments advance towards their policy targets. This would provide meaningful protection for families affected by HIV, as well as for millions of other vulnerable families and children across the region. Taylor & Francis 2016-05-26 2016-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4991222/ /pubmed/27392009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2016.1176685 Text en © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Articles
Kidman, Rachel
Heymann, Jody
Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries
title Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries
title_full Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries
title_fullStr Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries
title_full_unstemmed Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries
title_short Caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries
title_sort caregiver supportive policies to improve child outcomes in the wake of the hiv/aids epidemic: an analysis of the gap between what is needed and what is available in 25 high prevalence countries
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991222/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27392009
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2016.1176685
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