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HPTN 068: A Randomized Control Trial of a Conditional Cash Transfer to Reduce HIV Infection in Young Women in South Africa—Study Design and Baseline Results

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Abstract

Young women in South Africa are at high risk for HIV infection. Cash transfers offer promise to reduce HIV risk. We present the design and baseline results from HPTN 068, a phase III, individually randomized trial to assess the effect of a conditional cash transfer on HIV acquisition among South African young women. A total of 2533 young women were randomized to receive a monthly cash transfer conditional on school attendance or to a control group. A number of individual-, partner-, household- and school-level factors were associated with HIV and HSV-2 infection. After adjusting for age, all levels were associated with an increased odds of HIV infection with partner-level factors conveying the strongest association (aOR 3.05 95 % CI 1.84–5.06). Interventions like cash transfers that address structural factors such as schooling and poverty have the potential to reduce HIV risk in young women in South Africa.

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Acknowledgments

Overall support for the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) was provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Award Numbers UM1AI068619 (HPTN Leadership and Operations Center), UM1AI068617 (HPTN Statistical and Data Management Center), and UM1AI068613 (HPTN Laboratory Center). The study was also funded under Award Number 5R01MH087118-02 and R24 HD050924 to the Carolina Population Center. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases or the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, McGavran Greenberg Building CB#7435, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Audrey Pettifor

  2. MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Unit, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Audrey Pettifor, Catherine MacPhail, F. Xavier Gómez-Olivé, Ryan G. Wagner, Wonderful Mabuza, Rhian Twine, Stephen Tollman & Kathleen Kahn

  3. Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Audrey Pettifor & Catherine MacPhail

  4. Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Audrey Pettifor, Amanda Selin, Chirayath Suchindran & Tamu Daniel

  5. School of Health, University of New England, Armidale, Australia

    Catherine MacPhail

  6. Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Molly Rosenberg

  7. SCHARP, Seattle, WA, USA

    James P. Hughes & Jing Wang

  8. Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    James P. Hughes

  9. Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Chirayath Suchindran

  10. HPTN Laboratory Center, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Estelle Piwowar-Manning & Yaw Agyei

  11. FHI360, Durham, NC, USA

    Philip Andrew

  12. Laboratory of Immunoregulation, NIAID, NIH, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Oliver Laeyendecker

  13. Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Oliver Laeyendecker

  14. Umeå Centre for Global Health Research, Umeå, Sweden

    Stephen Tollman & Kathleen Kahn

  15. INDEPTH Network, Accra, Ghana

    Stephen Tollman & Kathleen Kahn

Authors
  1. Audrey Pettifor
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  2. Catherine MacPhail
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  3. Amanda Selin
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  4. F. Xavier Gómez-Olivé
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  5. Molly Rosenberg
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  6. Ryan G. Wagner
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  7. Wonderful Mabuza
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  8. James P. Hughes
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  9. Chirayath Suchindran
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  10. Estelle Piwowar-Manning
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  11. Jing Wang
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  12. Rhian Twine
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  13. Tamu Daniel
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  14. Philip Andrew
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  15. Oliver Laeyendecker
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  16. Yaw Agyei
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  17. Stephen Tollman
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  18. Kathleen Kahn
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The HPTN 068 protocol team

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Correspondence to Audrey Pettifor.

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Pettifor, A., MacPhail, C., Selin, A. et al. HPTN 068: A Randomized Control Trial of a Conditional Cash Transfer to Reduce HIV Infection in Young Women in South Africa—Study Design and Baseline Results. AIDS Behav 20, 1863–1882 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-015-1270-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-015-1270-0

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