Person:
de Walque, Damien

Development Research Group
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Education, Macroeconomic and Structural Policies, Health
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Development Research Group
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Last updated: October 24, 2023
Biography
Damien de Walque is a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group (Human Development Team) at the World Bank. He received his Ph.D.in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2003. His research interests include health and education and the interactions between them. His current work is focused on evaluating the impact of financial incentives on health and education outcomes. He is currently evaluating the education and health outcomes of conditional cash transfers linked to school attendance and health center visits in Burkina Faso. He is also working on evaluating the impact of HIV/AIDS interventions and policies in several African countries. He is leading two evaluations of the impact of short-term financial incentives on the prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs): individuals who test negatively for a set of STIs receive regular cash payment in Tanzania, while in Lesotho they receive lottery tickets. On the supply side of health services, he is managing a large portfolio of impact evaluations of results-based financing in the health sector. He has also edited a book on risky behaviors for health (smoking, drugs, alcohol, obesity, risky sex) in the developing world.
Citations 594 Scopus

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Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Discordant Couples : HIV Infection Among Couples in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-06) de Walque, Damien
    Most analyses of the determinants of HIV infection are performed at the individual level. The recent Demographic and Health Surveys which include results from HIV tests allow studying HIV infection at the level of the cohabiting couple. The paper exploits this feature of the data for Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. The analysis yields two surprising findings about the dynamics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic which have important implications for policy. First, at least two-thirds of the infected couples are discordant couples, that is, couples where only one of the two partners is infected. This implies that there is scope for prevention efforts among couples. Second, between 30 and 40 percent of the infected couples are couples where the female partner only is infected. This is at odds with levels of self-reported marital infidelity by females and with the common perception that unfaithful males are the main link between high risk groups and the general population. This study investigates and confirms the robustness of these findings. For example, even among couples where the woman has been in only one union for 10 years or more, the fraction of couples where only the female partner is infected remains high. These results suggest that extramarital sexual activity among cohabiting women, whatever its causes, is a substantial source of vulnerability to HIV that should be, as much as male infidelity, targeted by prevention efforts. Moreover, this paper uncovers several inconsistencies between the sexual behaviors reported by male and female partners, suggesting that as much as possible, prevention policies should rely on evidence including objectively measured HIV status.
  • Publication
    Who Gets AIDS and How? The Determinants of HIV Infection and Sexual Behaviors in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-02) de Walque, Damien
    This paper analyzes the determinants of HIV infection and associated sexual behaviors using data from the first five Demographic and Health Surveys to include HIV testing for a representative sample of the adult population. Emerging from a wealth of country relevant results, four important findings can be generalized. First, married women who engage in extra-marital sex are less likely to use condoms than single women when doing so. Second, having been in successive marriages is a significant risk-factor, as evidenced by the results on HIV infection and on sexual behaviors. Contrary to prima facie evidence, education is not associated positively with HIV status. But schooling is one of the most consistent predictors of behavior and knowledge: education predicts protective behaviors like condom use, use of counseling and testing, discussion among spouses and knowledge, but it also predicts a higher level of infidelity and a lower level of abstinence. Finally, male circumcision and female genital mutilation are often associated with sexual behaviors, practices, and knowledge related to AIDS. This might explain why in the analysis in the five countries there is no significant negative association between male circumcision and HIV status, despite recent evidence from a randomized control trial that male circumcision has a protective effect.