The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has one of the lowest HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa, estimated at 1.1% [0.9-1.3] of adults aged 15-49 in 2013 (UNAIDS). Within the 2 million km(2) country, however, there exists spatial variation in HIV prevalence, with the highest HIV prevalence observed in the large cities of Kinshasa and Lubumbashi. Globally, HIV is an increasingly rural disease, diffusing outwards from urban centers of high HIV prevalence to places where HIV was previously absent or present at very low levels. Utilizing data collected during Demographic and Health Surveillance (DHS) in 2007 and 2013 in the DRC, we sought to update the map of HIV prevalence in the DRC as well as to explore whether HIV in the DRC is an increasingly rural disease or remains confined to urban areas. Bayesian kriging and regression indicate that HIV prevalence in rural areas of the DRC is higher in 2013 than in 2007 and that increased distance to an urban area is no longer protective against HIV as it was in 2007. These findings suggest that HIV education, testing and prevention efforts need to diffuse from urban to rural areas just as HIV is doing.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 August 2025.
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#10,460,288
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Outputs from Health & Place
#1,303
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Outputs of similar age
#110,741
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Outputs of similar age from Health & Place
#22
of 29 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,692,245 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,115 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.9. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 29 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 24th percentile – i.e., 24% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
