Africans Outdo Americans in Following AIDS Therapy:
On average, he said, American patients tell their doctors that they are doing 20 percentage points better than they really are — that is, a patient who says he takes 90 percent of his pills will, when tested with unannounced home pill counts or electronic pill-bottle caps, turn out to be taking 70 percent.
A study of 29 Ugandan patients found that, on average, they estimated that they were taking 93 percent of pills and proved to be taking 91 percent.
I wouldn’t have predicted this at all. I was wrong, though I’ve seen another article or two suggesting similar findings in Botswana, so I can’t say I’m shocked and surprised. I’m glad I was wrong to some extent-but I wish the Americans weren’t so stupid about their medications too. Though, one thing to note is that selection bias might be an issue here-a much bigger cross-section of the populations of these African countries are HIV positive than in the United States or Western Europe.
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