Determinants of HIV testing among Filipino women: Results from the 2013 Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey

Abstract

Background The prevalence of having ever tested for HIV in the Philippines is very low and is far from the 90% target of the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) and UNAIDS, thus the need to identify the factors associated with ever testing for HIV among Filipino women. Methods We analysed the 2013 Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). The NDHS is a nationally representative survey which utilized a two-stage stratified design to sample Filipino women aged 15-49. We considered the following exposures in our study: socio-demographic characteristics of respondent and her partner (i.e., age of respondent, age of partner, wealth index, etc.), sexual practices and contraception (i.e., age at first intercourse, condom use, etc.), media access, tobacco use, HIV knowledge, tolerance to domestic violence, and women's empowerment. The outcome variable is HIV testing. We used logistic regression for survey data to study the said associations. Results Out of 16,155 respondents, only 372 (2.4%) have ever tested for HIV. After adjusting for confounders, having tertiary education (adjusted odds ratio (aOR)

Intimate Partner Violence and Its Association With HIV Testing Among Filipino Women: Results From the 2017 Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey

“…The factors that were eventually found to be associated with HIV testing (e.g., education, socio-economic status, etc.) were similar with the results to a previous study (21). Furthermore, the lack of association between being a victim of IPV and HIV testing has been previously documented in literature.…”

“…From these cross-tabulations, we control for the effect of the following confounders in the regression model: alcohol intake of partner, educational attainment of respondent, educational attainment of partner, domicile, religion, newspaper, weekly access to radio, tv and internet, wealth index, employment status, marital status, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, age of respondent, household size, age of partner, number of lifetime sexual partners, and tolerance to domestic violence score. Even if women's empowerment score, having a father who beats her mother, and controlling behavior of partner is not associated with our outcome from the data, we will still be controlling for these variables because previous studies have shown that these are known to confound the main association of interest (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25). We also assessed the potential confounding effect of the other remaining variables through regression modelling, but we did not nd any, hence they were not controlled for in our nal models.…”

“…The outcome variable in this analysis is having ever tested for HIV, dichotomized into never having tested for HIV and having ever tested for HIV. The probable confounders that were assessed in this analysis were hurting partner, alcohol intake of partner, respondent's father beats mother, educational attainment of respondent, educational attainment of partner, domicile, religion, access to newspaper, radio, television, and internet, wealth index, employment status, marital status, condom use, tobacco use, alcohol use, age of respondent, household size, age at rst sex of respondent, age of partner, number of lifetime sexual partners, number of children, HIV knowledge score, tolerance to domestic violence score, women's empowerment score, and extent of controlling behavior of spouse (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21).…”

“…Another study in the Philippines focused on the determinants of HIV testing among Filipino women in a nationally representative survey and found that having tertiary education, living with partner, tobacco use, socio-economic status, access to television and internet, living in rural areas, and being a Muslim is associated with ever testing for HIV (21). A systematic review has also identi ed a host of healthcare provider factors, such as perceived risk of infection and fear and worries, and institutional factors, such as accessibility of health services and scarcity of human and health resources that work to encourage or discourage HIV testing (22).…”

Increasing HIV Knowledge among Community Workers: Optimizing the Continuum of Care in Davao, Philippines

“…HIV is a significant health disparity affecting those living in the Philippines and prevalence is increasing at an alarming rate. The fact that these rates are increasing so quickly with such low testing rates (< 3%) suggests that more people are suffering from HIV and education and testing programs are needed to reduce the burden of disease [12,13,18]. One method of addressing marked public health issues is to improve awareness.…”