The effect of peers on HIV infection expectations among Malawian adolescents: Using an instrumental variables/school fixed effect approach.

ABSTRACT: Malawian adolescents overestimate their HIV infection risk. Understanding why they do so is important since such overestimation is likely to be linked to later-life outcomes. This study focuses on the influence peers have on HIV infection expectations. I use novel school-based survey data collected in Malawi between October 2011 and March 2012 (n = 7910), which has more reliable measures of peers' HIV infection expectations than other studies. I employ a combined instrumental variables/fixed effects methodology designed to addresses several methodological challenges in estimating peer effects, including self-selection of friends, the issue of unobserved environmental confounders, and the bi-directionality of peer effects. Several tests are conducted in order to assess the robustness of the

SUBMITTER: Kim J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4762268 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature