HIV stigma beliefs in context: Country and regional variation in the effects of instrumental stigma beliefs on protective sexual behaviors in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa

Does the relationship between the expression of HIV stigma beliefs and the practice of protective sexual behaviors vary by social context? To answer this question, we apply multilevel techniques to Demographic and Health Survey data from seven low HIV prevalence Latin American and Caribbean countries and seven high HIV prevalence Southern African countries to examine contextual variation in this relationship. We examine whether the relationship between stigma beliefs and sexual behaviors differs across these two sets of countries and across regions within each set of countries. We first find that in high prevalence Southern African countries, one unit increases in HIV stigma beliefs are associated with 8% declines in the odds of practicing protective sexual behaviors. Conversely, in low prevalence Latin American and Caribbean countries, unit increases in HIV stigma beliefs are associated with 8% increases in the odds of those same sexual behaviors. Second, the relationship between stigma beliefs and protective sexual behaviors varies across regions within each set of countries, with a wider variance in regional stigma effects located in Southern Africa than in Latin America and the Caribbean. Third, in Southern Africa, the negative effect of stigma beliefs is even more negative in regions where conservative stigma beliefs are pronounced. Overall, our findings demonstrate the importance of taking country and regional context into account when examining the degree to which HIV beliefs affect personal sexual behaviors, which in turn, can contribute to the spread of HIV. Importantly, the implications of our results offer potential guidance to experts who wish to design policies and programs aimed at reducing the expression of negative HIV beliefs towards those infected with HIV.