There is overwhelming evidence that multiple social, economic, and structural factors perpetuate inequalities and increase human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk among adolescents, including poverty and other vulnerabilities addressed by social protection programmes.
To better understand the role of social protection in addressing these complex and multidimensional determinants of HIV, UNICEF conducted a systematic review to examine the evidence on cash plus or ‘bundled’ multisectoral interventions and their impacts on new HIV infections, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and outcomes and risk factors to HIV/STIs among adolescents and young people in Africa.
To date, this is the first review to examine bundled economic strengthening and health interventions — including but not limited to social protection — to draw lessons for developing and scaling up multi-sectoral programmes, including social protection, and making them HIV-sensitive.
The newly released research brief summarizes a longer paper by Kate Rogers, Rikke Le Kirkegaard, Joyce Wamoyi, Kaley Grooms, Shaffiq Essajee and Tia Palermo, titled Systematic review of cash plus or bundled interventions targeting adolescents in Africa to reduce HIV risk, published on BMC Public Health in January 2024.