Education Slows Spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa
March 31, 2009
A Penn State University study of 11 sub-Saharan African nations finds that basic education can act as a "social vaccine" against HIV/AIDS.
Though the man had memorized the facts, he was not able to make good use of them, said Baker. "Obviously facts are important. You need to know the basic facts, but beyond that what education does is it helps you think about how those facts go together. And it helps you develop, what we could call, a working theory, a working model of the disease and your risk. So we think that just basic education has a major effect on how people think about risk and that's what we mean in terms of a social vaccine."
Prevention programs' content "is going to have to get much more explicit," Baker continued. "It's going to have to work with people to have them understand what is the causal agent in the transmission of the disease and inform them more."
Voice of America News
03.25.2009; Joe DeCapua
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Article Examines Relationship Between Malnutrition, HIV Progression in Sub-Saharan Africa
This article was provided by CDC National Prevention Information Network. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.