Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. But give people no-strings-attached cash, and you’ll reduce the rate of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths. Cash transfer programs have become popular in low- and middle-income countries for their potential to provide social safety nets and alleviate poverty, but their primary goal isn’t to improve public health., are so encouraging for infectious disease scientists.
Richterman stressed that the cash programs evaluated in the study were not meant to control HIV or other STIs, but the results demonstrate their utility to do so nonetheless. The programs corresponded with an immediate 6 percent reduction in the risk of a new HIV infection that continued up to a decade later. The risk of AIDS-related deaths decreased by 9 percent and HIV treatment coverage increased by 3 percent after a short delay.
Most HIV reduction programs today focus on strictly public health measures, Richterman said, such as incentivizing high-risk individuals to take a pre-exposure prophylactic or get tested for HIV and other STIs. This study shows that “we should also think about a broader array of interventions, such as basic income,” he added.