Principal investigator
Shirish Darak
Supervisors (Academic)
Professor Inge Hutter and Dr Fanny Janssen
Supervisors (Local)
Dr Sanjeevani Kulkarni (Prayas, Pune)
Type of research
PhD research
Collaboration
PRAYAS Health Group, Pune, Maharashtra, India
Funding
Population Research Centre, Department of Demography, University of Groningen, The Netherlands &
Eric Bleumink Fund, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Period
2008-2013
Objective
The objective of proposed research is to study reproductive health issues of HIV infected women in Maharashtra, India. This will be studied by analyzing the reproductive career of HIV infected women, and the biological and behavioral factors influencing the occurrence and timing of events. The study will also focus on the underlying decision-making processes and how these are shaped by the socio-cultural context.
Research questions
Quantitative Part
1. What is the reproductive career of HIV infected women (events, timing)?
1.1 Does the reproductive career of HIV infected women differ according to background characteristics such as age,
education, place of residence, socio-economic status and religion?
1.2. Does the reproductive career of HIV infected women differ according to the timing of HIV diagnosis?
1.3. Does the reproductive career of HIV infected women differ according to the background and HIV related
characteristics of husbands?
2. Did the availability of ART and PMTCT lead to a change in the reproductive career (events, timing) of HIV infected women?
3. What is the impact of different reproductive events (multiple pregnancies/shorter inter-pregnancy interval, repeated induced abortions, abstinence etc) on maternal HIV disease progression?
Qualitative part
4. What are the decision making processes of HIV infected women related to different reproductive events? How do women cope with the transitions in their reproductive career? How are these decisions and coping mechanism embedded in the socio-cultural context in which they live?
Activities
Activities in the first phase of the project involves preparation of preliminary project proposal and analysis of existing data on the project for prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV at PRAYAS. This would be followed by primary data collection among HIV infected women attending PRAYAS Amrita Clinic in Pune, Maharashtra.
Papers in progress
-
'Fertility among HIV infected Indian women: the biological effect and its implications' Shrinivas Darak, Fanny Janssen and Inge Hutter Journal of Biosocial Sciences (in Press)
-
Socio-demographic factors associated with loss to follow-up of HIV infected women attending a private sector PMTCT program in Maharashtra, India Mayuri Panditrao, Shrinivas Darak, Vinay Kulkarni, Sanjeevani Kulkarni and Ritu Parchure AIDS Care (in press)
Publications
Darak S, Janssen F, Hutter I. (2011), Fertility among HIV-infected Indian women: the biological effect and its implications. Journal of Biosocial Science 43(1), pp. 19-29. Epub 2010 Oct 12.
