CEF.UP WIP Seminar

"The cat is out of the bag: Using Mouselab to expose HIV discrimination"

Please confirm your attendance no later than, Tuesday June 11th, by 3:00pm This Seminar will be held in Room 613 CEF.UP WIP Seminar Friday - June 13, 2014 1- 2pm Li-Wei Chao* & Rui Leite** *Cef.Up and Porto Business School, **FEP "The cat is out of the bag: Using Mouselab to expose HIV discrimination" (joint work with Helena Szrek, Cef.up and Porto Business School) Structured Abstract: Objective: HIV stigma has been touted as a barrier to HIV prevention and care, but there is no consensus on how best to measure stigma. Stigma attitudes expressed in surveys may also not represent real behavior. Moreover, even if potentially stigmatizing behavior is observed, HIV may not be the main reason for this behavior. This study breaks new ground by using experimental economics games combined with surveys and an eye-tracking substitute (Mouselab) to detect HIV discrimination. Method: 358 health clinic clients around Witbank, South Africa, played the Trust Game three months after HIV testing. Each player was paired and assigned a role of Player A (first mover) or Player B (second mover) in an anonymous one-shot Trust Game. Each player scrolled with a Mouselab equipped computer to open one button at a time to reveal six possible characteristics, including HIV status, of the paired player. After practice-scrolling, each player scrolled to view the paired player's characteristics and then made Trust Game decisions. Afterwards, players answered a survey that included an HIV stigma instrument validated for South Africa. We used interval regression to model A's behavior in terms of the amount player A transferred to player B. Covariates included players' characteristics, player pairs' HIV configurations (HIV+/HIV+, HIV+/HIV-, HIV-/HIV+, and HIV-/HIV-), a stigma instrument score, expected return offers from B to A, and time-to-HIV. TTH measured the length of time it took player A to scroll to B's HIV button. Results: The mean transfer amount from A to B was around R30 out of R50, and it did not differ by players' HIV status. Raw TTH ranged from just under a second to over half a minute. HIV- A players with a short TTH transferred R10 less to HIV+ B players (p<.01), relative to how much an otherwise identical HIV- A player sent to an HIV- B player. Although the stigma survey instrument score was significantly related to TTH, with high stigma score associated with fast TTH, the survey instrument score alone was not significant in predicting transfers from A to B. Conclusions: HIV- A players who quickly opened the HIV box to view B's HIV status discriminated against HIV+ B players in the Trust Game. HIV stigma survey instrument scores alone did not detect HIV discrimination. Mouselab allows researchers to 'cheat' by using otherwise unobserved behavioral patterns to better detect stigma. A light, sandwich and fruit lunch will be served, only to those who will confirm their attendance. Please confirm your attendance to abonanca@fep.up.pt For further information and papers or abstracts, please visit our website. We are looking forward to seeing you there. Kind regards, Alper Çenesiz