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Data

Discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV

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HIV/AIDS

What you should know about this indicator

Discrimination is a human rights violation prohibited by international human rights law and most national constitutions. Discrimination in the context of HIV refers to unfair or unjust treatment (an act or an omission) of an individual based on his or her real or perceived HIV status. Discrimination exacerbates risks and deprives people of their rights and entitlements, fuelling the HIV epidemic. This indicator does not directly measure discrimination but rather measures discriminatory attitudes that may result in discriminatory acts (or omissions). One item in the indicator measures the potential support by respondents for discrimination that takes place at an institution and the other measures social distancing or behavioural expressions of prejudice. The composite indicator can be monitored as a measure of a key manifestation of HIV-related stigma and the potential for HIV-related discrimination within the general population. This indicator could provide further understanding and improve interventions in HIV discrimination by: showing change over time in the percentage of people with discriminatory attitudes; allowing comparisons between national, provincial, state and more local administrations; and indicating priority areas for action.

Method of measurement: Population-based surveys (Demographic and Health Survey, AIDS Indicator Survey, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey or other representative survey). This indicator is constructed from responses to the following questions in a general population survey from respondents who have heard of HIV.

  • Would you buy fresh vegetables from a shopkeeper or vendor if you knew that this person had HIV? (yes, no, don't know/not sure/it depends)

  • Do you think that children living with HIV should be able to attend school with children who are HIV negative? (yes, no, don't know/not sure/it depends)

The respondents who have never heard of HIV and AIDS should be excluded from the estimation. Participants who respond don't know/not sure/it depends and those who refuse to answer should also be excluded.

Yes and no responses to each question may not add up to 100% if any participants respond “don't know” or values are missing. Calculating the percentage of people responding no to this question by subtracting the percentage of yes responses from 100% would therefore be inaccurate.

More details: https://indicatorregistry.unaids.org/indicator/discriminatory-attitudes-towards-people-living-hiv

Discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV
Percentage of people who responded NO to "Would you buy fresh vegetables from a shopkeeper or vendor if you knew that this person had HIV?"
Source
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 22, 2025
Date range
2010–2020
Unit
%

Explore charts that include this data

Discrimination towards those with HIV, by sex and age

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

UNAIDS leads the world's most extensive data collection on HIV epidemiology, programme coverage and finance and publishes the most authoritative and up-to-date information on the HIV epidemic.

In some cases there is no data for some country and year. This can be a result of very small epidemics among women in the reproductive age which makes estimation of the mother to child transmission very unstable. Another reason for missing data is that relevant authorities may have asked UNAIDS not to share their estimates.

This UNAIDS 2024 report brings together new data and case studies which demonstrate that the decisions and policy choices taken by world leaders this year will decide the fate of millions of lives and whether the world's deadliest pandemic is overcome.

Retrieved on
January 22, 2025
Retrieved from
https://aidsinfo.unaids.org/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
The urgency of now: AIDS at a crossroads. Geneva: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS; 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. Full report: https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/2024-unaids-global-aids-update_en.pdf

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV”, part of the following publication: Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie (2023) - “HIV / AIDS”. Data adapted from Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/discriminatory-attitudes-towards-people-living-with-hiv [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV – ” [dataset]. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, “Global AIDS Update” [original data]. Retrieved March 10, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/discriminatory-attitudes-towards-people-living-with-hiv