Dr Jonathan Cave considers economic consequences of HIV as part of World AIDS Day

To support World AIDS Day, Warwick UNICEF on Campus organised a range of activates and events last week, as part of the World AIDS Awareness Project (WAAP) to help raise awareness about the fight against HIV/AIDS.

A conference was held last week featuring a number of speakers focusing on four major themes; Awareness, Stigmatisation, Medication and Prevention, while encompassing medical, sociological and political approaches.

One of the speakers was Dr. Jonathan Cave, a Senior research fellow from the Department of Economics, and he addressed the socio-economic responses to HIV/AIDS and the prospect for using economic instruments to address its challenges.

Dr Jonathan Cave said “HIV-Aids is a complex illness, which interacts with social as well as biological systems. The fight to reduce its incidence and mitigate its effects has important economic dimensions, ranging from the commercial aspects of antiretroviral drugs to the macroeconomic performance of an age distribution from which the economically active have largely been removed, leaving primarily the very young and the very old.

Over and above market incentives, progress rests on behavioural change. In this regard, HIV-Aids bears comparison with other contagious diseases such as Ebola and with other behaviourally-linked health challenges such as obesity and drug abuse. It’s important to consider the disease as an economic phenomenon, its economic consequences and the prospect for using economic instruments to address its challenges.”

Find out more about Warwick UNICEF on Campus.