HIV and H2O: Tracing the connections between gender, water and HIV

Background:

The health consequences for HIV-affected families of inadequate access to safe water are particularly dire: inadequate access to clean water complicates medication adherence and increases vulnerability to opportunistic infections. The gendered nature of both water and HIV care—with women bearing disproportionately the time and resource burden in both areas—presents an unrealized opportunity to improve HIV outcomes through investments in water and sanitation. This presentation reviews and synthesizes existing literature and interventions on HIV and water, advancing this work with particular attention to the important role that gender plays in this process.

Methods:

We conducted a review of research on the gendered burden of water and on water/sanitation and HIV, including existing interventions linking water and HIV/AIDS. We then developed a logic model to describe how water, HIV, and gender intersect.

Results:

Strong evidence links HIV/AIDS health outcomes to water, sanitation, and hygiene, but few evaluations have rigorously assessed the impact of water interventions on HIV/AIDS outcomes. Even less attention has been paid to the role of gender in shaping the interaction between safe water and HIV/AIDS. The paper presents a model and proposes an intervention design through which we can further explore the paths between gender, water and HIV/AIDS health outcomes.

Conclusions:

This review assesses the intersection of gender, HIV, and water, mapping the connections between women's double burden of resource collection and HIV treatment and care, and suggests a structural intervention to address these factors.