Modelling HIV/AIDS cases in Zambia: A comparative study of the impact of mandatory HIV testing

In this study, a time series modeling approach is used to determine an ARIMA model and advance counterfactual forecasting at a point of policy intervention. We consider monthly data of HIV/AIDS cases from the Ministry of Health (Copperbelt province) of Zambia, for the period 2010 to 2019 and have a total of 120 observations. Results indicate that ARIMA (1, 0, 0) is an adequate model which best fits the HIV/AIDS time series data and is, therefore, suitable for forecasting cases. The model predicts a reduction from an average of 3500 to 3177 representing 14.29% in HIV/AIDS cases from 2017 (year of policy activation) to 2019, but the actual recorded cases dropped from 3500 to 1514 accounting for 57.4% in the same time frame.

Moyo, E. , Shakalima, J. , Chambashi, G. , Muchinga, J. and Matindih, L. (2021) Modelling HIV/AIDS Cases in Zambia: A Comparative Study of the Impact of Mandatory HIV Testing. Open Journal of Statistics, 11, 409-419. doi: 10.4236/ojs.2021.113025.


Item Type:
Article
Subjects:
Public Health
University: 
Unicaf University - Zambia
Divisions:
Counterfactual Forecasting, Box-Jenkins Methodology, ARIMA Model, Auto-correlation Function, Partial Autocorrelation Function
Depositing User:
Edwin Moyo, James C. Shakalima, Gilbert Chambashi, James Muchinga, Levy K. Matindih
Date Deposited:
June 2021