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Socioeconomic Factors and the Outcomes of Thailand’s Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission program (PMTCT)

By Wichsinee Wibulpolprasert

Since its implementation in 2001, the national program for Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) in Thailand has been successful in substantially reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission. In order to assess and improve the efficacy of the PMTCT program, it is important to identify relevant socio-demographic and biomedical factors associated with antiretroviral compliance and HIV transmission rates. In this paper, we attempt to measure the associations between province specific socio-demographic characteristics, such as average income, education, average household size, and availability of health care providers, on the antiretroviral compliance rate. Then we measure how the antiretroviral completion rates and other biomedical factors affect the probability of mother-to-child HIV transmission among participants in Thailand’s national PMTCT program. We find that education level, mother’s nationality, family size, prenatal care, and the time the pregnant woman learned of her HIV status statistically affect the probability of completing the antiretroviral regimen. The sex of the infant, prenatal care, and the second antiretroviral regimen statistically affect the transmission rates.

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