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Zambia Demographic and Health Survey 2001-2002 - Measure DHS

Zambia Demographic and Health Survey 2001-2002 - Measure DHS

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In looking at issues that might cause the difference between the two estimates, potential biases<strong>and</strong> differences in methodology between ANC surveillance <strong>and</strong> Z<strong>DHS</strong> need to be recognised. ANC sentinelsurveillance collects HIV prevalence data by testing currently pregnant women age 15-39 who attendantenatal care clinics during their pregnancy. These data are then used to derive estimates of HIV prevalencein the general population. It is recognized that there are a number of potential problems with thisapproach (UNAIDS/WHO Working Group on Global HIV/AIDS <strong>and</strong> STI Surveillance, 2000). First,there is a gender gap due to the fact that men are not tested in ANC clinics, <strong>and</strong> HIV prevalence levelstypically differ between men <strong>and</strong> women. Furthermore, women who attend antenatal care clinics are defacto sexually active. Thus, the HIV prevalence will necessarily be higher in this group than in the femalepopulation as a whole, where some women are not sexually active <strong>and</strong> hence not exposed to the virus.HIV prevalence levels also vary with age, <strong>and</strong> women who attend antenatal care clinics have a differentage distribution than the female population at large. Geographic coverage is another issue with the ANCsentinel data. Generally, the data come from a limited number of antenatal care clinic sites that tend to beconcentrated in urban or semi-urban areas, where HIV rates are higher. In the ANC surveillance in <strong>Zambia</strong>in 1998, there were 22 ANC sentinel sites, only 5 of which were characterised as rural.Results from population-based surveys like the <strong>2001</strong>-<strong>2002</strong> Z<strong>DHS</strong> can more accurately portray theHIV prevalence in a community because they involve nationally representative samples. Thus, the pool ofpeople tested closely mirrors the entire population. However, surveys are not completely without problems.First, a survey involves a sample of the population <strong>and</strong>, thus, is subject to natural variability inherentin the process of drawing a sample. Participation biases can also affect the representativeness of thesurvey data. Because individuals can refuse to be tested, population-based surveys may under-representsome groups. As discussed earlier (see Section 14.1.3), the Z<strong>DHS</strong> HIV data were weighted to take intoaccount differential response rates by sex <strong>and</strong> province.In assessing the factors that might underlie the difference between the <strong>2001</strong>-<strong>2002</strong> Z<strong>DHS</strong> <strong>and</strong> theANC surveillance estimates, two approaches are employed (Dzekedzeke, 2003). First, to more directlycompare the Z<strong>DHS</strong> <strong>and</strong> ANC results, a “catchment” approach is used. For this approach, all Z<strong>DHS</strong> clusterswithin a 2-kilometer radius of urban antenatal care sentinel sites <strong>and</strong> within a 5-kilometer radius ofrural sentinel sites were identified. There were 29 of these “catchment” clusters, out of a total of 320 clustersin the <strong>2001</strong>-<strong>2002</strong> Z<strong>DHS</strong>. The “catchment” clusters were located near 16 of a total of 22 antenatal caresentinel sites. HIV prevalence estimates were recalculated for the “catchment” subsets from the Z<strong>DHS</strong><strong>and</strong> ANC surveillance. Results show that the HIV prevalence rate for the ANC clients in these 16 antenatalcare sentinel sites is 20 percent, while the rate for the adult population 15-49 in the 29 Z<strong>DHS</strong> “catchment”clusters is 19 percent.A second approach was used to explore the hypothesis that the limited coverage of ANC sentinelsites <strong>and</strong> specifically the concentration of sites in urbanized locations might be responsible for the differencebetween the survey <strong>and</strong> surveillance estimates. Nearly 3 out of every 5 women tested in the ANCsurveillance were tested at sites classified as urban. In contrast, only around 30 percent of pregnantwomen in the Z<strong>DHS</strong> sample live in urban areas. In the second approach, HIV prevalence rates for urban<strong>and</strong> rural areas estimated based on the ANC surveillance were weighted using the urban-rural distributionof currently pregnant women in the <strong>2001</strong>-<strong>2002</strong> Z<strong>DHS</strong>. When the Z<strong>DHS</strong> urban-rural distribution is appliedto the ANC surveillance results, the adjusted HIV prevalence rate for the total population is 17 percentcompared with the overall rate of 16 percent as estimated in the <strong>2001</strong>-<strong>2002</strong> Z<strong>DHS</strong>.Based on these analyses, it can be concluded that there is fairly close correspondence between the<strong>2001</strong>-<strong>2002</strong> Z<strong>DHS</strong> <strong>and</strong> ANC surveillance HIV prevalence rates when adjusted for the biased geographiccoverage of the ANC surveillance system.240 | Prevalence of HIV <strong>and</strong> Syphilis

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