Estimating and Forecasting the Impact of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic on Kinship Resources for Orphans

• Activity Number: 658
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 4, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Bayesian Statistical Science
• Author(s): Emilio Zagheni*+
• Companies: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
• Keywords: Bayesian calibration ; Stochastic microsimulation ; Kinship forecasting ; HIV/AIDS ; Orphans ; Zimbabwe

Abstract

Most of the demographic projections of kin availability have been produced with the stochastic microsimulator SOCSIM. However, statistical inference on the quantities of interest has been fairly limited. In this paper, I propose a Bayesian approach, closely related to the 'Bayesian melding', to calibrate the parameters of the microsimulation, and to measure uncertainty. The method is applied to the context of a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic, to evaluate kinship resources for orphans. The geographical focus is Zimbabwe, one of the countries hit the hardest by the epidemic. The model is calibrated using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys, and estimates and projections of demographic rates from the United Nations. The main substantive result is that there is a lag of more than ten years between the peak in orphanhood prevalence and the one in scarcity of grandparents for orphans. This indicates that a generalized epidemic has a prolonged impact on orphans that extends well beyond the peak in mortality. A first wave of rapid increase in the number of orphans is followed by a second wave of impact characterized by a reduction of grandparental resources for orphans.