Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/167714 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Citation: 
[Journal:] Economies [ISSN:] 2227-7099 [Volume:] 2 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] MDPI [Place:] Basel [Year:] 2014 [Pages:] 171-192
Publisher: 
MDPI, Basel
Abstract: 
We provide a theoretical foundation for analyzing how social stigma and adopted behavioral traits affect the transmission of HIV across a population. We combine an evolutionary game-theoretic model-based on a relationship signaling stage game-with the SIR (susceptible-infected-recovered) model of disease transmission. Our evolutionary model specifies how two types of social stigma-that which accompanies an HIV+ condition and that which follows associating with an HIV+ partner-influence behavioral propensities to honestly report one's condition (or not) and to unconditionally accept relationships (or not). With respect to reporting an HIV+ condition, we find that condition stigma impedes the fitness of honest reporting, whereas association stigma impedes the relative fitness of concealing an HIV+ condition; and both propensities can coexist in a polymorphic equilibrium. By linking our model to the SIR model, we find that condition stigma unambiguously enhances disease transmission by discouraging both honest reporting and a society's acceptance of AIDS education, whereas association stigma has an ambiguous impact: on one hand it can impede HIV transmission by discouraging concealing behavior and unconditional relationship acceptance, but it also compromises a society's acceptance of AIDS education. Our relatively simple evolutionary/SIR model offers a foundation for numerous theoretical extensions-such as applications to social network theory-as well as foundation for many testable empirical hypotheses.
Subjects: 
evolutionary game theory
HIV transmission
polymorphic equilibrium
SIR model of disease transmission
social stigma
JEL: 
C70
C73
D80
I18
Z13
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

Files in This Item:
File
Size
575.79 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.