title: Does donor assistance for HIV respond to media pressure?
abstract: HIV/AIDS is a heavily mediatised disease. In this article, we test whether media attention is affecting donors' disbursement of aid for HIV to African countries. We use information available on the number of articles and press documents on HIV issues and other health concerns published in donor countries to construct a proxy of media coverage. This proxy is then included as an explanatory variable in a regression of aid for HIV to Africa. After controlling for several donor characteristics, we find that greater media coverage increases aid disbursement. This may be good news for the HIV campaign but may result in displacement effects to the extent that other diseases that cause greater mortality and morbidity receive less media coverage than HIV and thus less health aid.
authors.affiliation: Department of Accounting, Finance, and Economics, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. f.carmignani@griffith.edu.au
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Carmignani
authors.forename: Grace
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lordan
authors.forename: Kam Ki
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Tang
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005378:Financial Support; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D008402:Mass Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017059:Models, Econometric; D011639:Public Opinion