Urban and Rural HIV Estimates among Adult Population (15- 49 Years) in Selected States of India Using Spectrum Data

HIV estimation has become a standard tool for understanding the epidemic. Although the majority of India’s population lives in rural areas, to date, an exploration of the urban and rural HIV epi-demic has not been undertaken. The objective of this study is to develop HIV estimation based on urban and rural adult populations in selected states of India to understand the difference in HIV related indices geographically. Ten states were selected based on HIV prevalence levels-Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, and Nagaland, Mizoram, Punjab, Odisha and Jharkhand. Spectrum, version 4.53 beta 19, was used. Data files of Indian national estimation, 2010-11 which included population, HIV Sentinel Surveillance, Integrated Bio Behavioral Assess-ment and program coverage data, were used and alterations made wherever necessary. The urban and rural sub epidemic structures and their subpopulations were separately configured in the Es-timation projection package and curve fitting done. Outputs for each state were separately ana-lyzed. Findings show that HIV prevalence is lower in urban than rural areas in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra; in Karnataka there is no difference in HIV prevalence in the urban and rural popula