Despite impressive gains in the response to the HIV epidemic in Asia and the Pacific, a notable weakness of the national responses in the region has been the inadequate efforts to mitigate the social and economic impact of the epidemic on people living with HIV, and their households.

One of the reasons for this gap has been the deficiency of evidence that could guide impact mitigation policies and programmes at the national and provincial levels. To address this issue, since 2005 UNDP has undertaken national studies to assess the socio-economic impact of HIV on people living with HIV and their households. The first such case-controlled study was conducted in India in partnership with the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).

Based on the lessons learned from this study, as well as experiences from the rest of the region and elsewhere, the HIV, Health and Development Team of the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Centre (APRC) supported similar studies in Cambodia, China, Viet Nam and Indonesia. The studies employed case-controlled, large-scale sample surveys across several provinces in each country and provided scientific evidence on the nature and extent of the social and economic impact of HIV on people living with HIV and their households.