The Impact of Climate Change on HIV
Propelevate’s work helping Frontline AIDS better understand how climate change affects HIV has been featured in the Lancet. We spoke to Frontline AIDS’ frontline partners around the world about their experience, we reviewed existing literature and we spoke to climate/health experts. We worked with Frontline AIDS to synthesize this in the Frontline AIDS’ Climate-HIV Framework which is part of the larger Frontline AIDS’ Evidence Brief: HIV and the Climate Crisis: Safeguarding Health in a Changing World.
Frontline AIDS Climate-HIV Framework
“The framework...shows the complex interconnectedness of climate change and HIV. Increased migration and population displacement, food insecurity, economic stress, conflict, communicable diseases, and the erosion of health infrastructure can increase the rates of HIV infection and worsen the health and wellbeing of people with HIV. Impacts on HIV programmes and people with HIV can manifest as reduced access to prevention, testing, and treatment services, poor adherence to treatment, poor nutrition, and reduced immunity. Other effects could see increases in HIV risk (eg, more transactional sex as a result of food insecurity) and increased discrimination of populations most affected by HIV. These effects are amplified by pre-existing vulnerabilities that affect people with HIV.”
Modeling going forward based on temperature data and data from 400,000 people across 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa in a ‘business as usual' scenario for carbon emissions shows between 11.6 and 16 million additional cases of HIV by 2050 as temperature continues to rise. This is an increase in HIV prevalence of 1.4 - 2.1 percent.
What is striking is that there is increasing evidence of these types of indirect effects of climate change for almost any health area. The good news about the engagement of the HIV community looking at the intersection of climate and HIV is this is a community who knows how to create global change. We can harness the experience of AIDS activists and the successes and transformative moments in response to HIV that can be instructive in climate action. These include: the importance of those most impacted leading the movement, the importance of non-scientists in decision-making that uses scientific evidence to formulate policies, building upon existing movements, communities holding governments and organizations accountable, and believing in the possibility – but not the inevitability – of success.
If you’re interested in exploring incorporating climate change in your sexual and reproductive health work, contact Propelevate at info@propelevate.global to set up a free consultation.