Evaluating a Youth-Focused Economic Empowerment Approach to HIV Treatment Adherence

Suubi+Adherence: Evaluating a Youth-Focused Economic Empowerment Approach to HIV Treatment Adherence

The goal of Suubi+Adherence is to examine the impact and cost associated with an innovative intervention to increase adherence to HIV treatment for HIV-infected adolescents. Multiple intervention studies by our team in Rakai and Masaka Districts of southern Uganda with AIDS-orphaned adolescents have revealed that if given an opportunity to participate in economic empowerment interventions, youth and their caregivers take full advantage of these interventions to save and invest in their future, show improvements in family financial outcomes, future aspirations, health functioning, sexual-risk taking behaviors, and mental health. The Suubi+Adherence study capitalizes on this prior work, positing that economic empowerment may be a missing, yet critical ingredient to HIV treatment adherence interventions for adolescents and young people. Suubi+Adherence incorporates an economic empowerment design, with a savings-led income generating component, to promote economic stability, and apply it to adherence to HIV treatment regimens for HIV-positive adolescents in a region of southern Uganda with the highest HIV incidence and prevalence in the country.

Inclusion Criteria:

• HIV-positive adolescents confirmed by medical report
• Prescribed antiretroviral therapy
• Enrolled in care at one of 40 medical clinics within study region
• 10-16 years of age at the time of enrollment
• Living within a family (not necessarily with biological parent(s))

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not HIV-positive
• HIV-positive but not prescribed antiretroviral therapy
• Not enrolled in care at one of 40 medical clinics within study region
• Younger than 10 years and older than 16 years
• Not living within a family