Predictors of Discrimination Towards People Living with HIV/AIDS Among People Aged 15–49 Years in Ethiopia: A Multilevel Analysis

BACKGROUND: There is limited national representative evidence on determinants of discrimination towards people living with HIV/AIDS especially, community-level factors that are not investigated in Ethiopia. Thus, this study aimed to assess individual and community-level factors associated with discrimination towards people living with HIV/AIDS among 15–49 age people in Ethiopia. METHODS: A secondary data analysis was done on the 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey dataset which was collected cross-sectional. A total of 25,927 weighted 15–49 age people were included in the analysis. Multi-level mixed-effect logistic regression analysis was done by STATA version 14.0 to identify individual and community-level factors. Adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to show the strength and direction of the association and statistical significance was declared at P value less than 0.05. RESULTS: From individual level factors, being female [AOR=1.47, 95% CI= (1.18, 1.83)], not attend education [AOR=5.88,95% CI= (4.50, 7.67)], attending primary education [AOR=3.03, 95% CI= (2.40, 3.81)] and attending secondary education [AOR=1.48, 95% CI= (1.19, 1.82)] have discrimination attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS. From community level factors, live in low proportion of educated communities [AOR=1.33, 95% CI= (1.01, 1.65)], rural dweller [AOR=1.65, 95% CI= (1.23, 2.21)], live in low proportion of HIV tested communities [AOR=1.61, 95% CI= (1.33, 1.93)] were significantly associated with discrimination attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS. CONCLUSION: Sex of the respondent, religion, educational status, household wealth index, marital status, media exposure, internet use, HIV test status, region, and residence, community level of education, and community level of HIV test status were predictors of discrimination attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. Improving educational and community-level HIV/AIDS test coverage are important interventions to reduce discrimination towards people living with HIV/AIDS in the country.