The demographic impact of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa: Short- and long-term projections

This paper describes the methodology used to incorporate AIDS mortality in recently revised World Bank population projections, and compares resulting demographic indicators with those constructed if AIDS is not incorporated, as in previous editions of the World Bank’s projections. The paper first reviews different approaches for projecting AIDS and its demographic consequences. This is followed by a summary of an epidemiological model that simulates the spread of HIV used in this analysis, and a demographic model that translates mortality from AIDS into population outcomes. These models are then used in a set of simulations, from which the effect of current HIV prevalence on projected future mortality is extracted. Finally, the extracted equations linking current HIV prevalence with future mortality indicators are applied to sub-Saharan countries with a measurable level of current HIV prevalence.