Children at the Intersection of HIV, Poverty, and Mental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Abstract

Few efforts in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have explored interventions capable of targeting the root causes and consequences of persistent poverty, violence, and co-occurring mental health problems, particularly depression and trauma. In addition, few studies aimed at enhancing mental health functioning of communities and families have addressed critical, culturally congruent, and scientifically documented risk factors of persistent family poverty, community violence, and impact of HIV/AIDS. Most investigators in SSA target their intervention studies primarily on personal/individual trait models, emphasizing generic psychosocial counseling. Such interventions often fall short of fielding and testing contextually grounded, multidisciplinary, combined approaches necessary to break the vicious cycle of persistent poverty, community violence, HIV risk, and co-occurring mental health problems that affect children, adolescents, and their families. Moreover, it is critical that mental health and HIV prevention interventions in SSA countries are guided by contextually relevant methods and conceptual models developed and tested in SSA. This chapter discusses the importance of combination interventions and research studies targeted at examining their impact in addressing persistent poverty, co-occurring mental health problems, and HIV infection in the SSA region as an important step in this direction.