Abstract—A weight-of-evidence model based on antenatal HIV seroprevalence data is explored to study the effect of demographic characteristics on the risk of acquiring an HIV infection amongst pregnant women in South Africa. Antenatal data obtained from each pregnant woman contains a wealth of information in the form of demographic characteristics. In this research we use weights-of-evidence models (WOE) and information values (IV) as measures of the risk of acquiring an HIV infection to monitor changes in HIV risk over a period of 10 years from 2001 to 2010. The study demonstrated that the risk of acquiring an HIV infection amongst pregnant women in South Africa was higher for the younger women below the age of 28 during the early years of 2001 to 2005. However, during the subsequent years of 2006 to 2010, the risk dropped amongst the younger women with the simultaneous increase amongst the older women over the age of 28. Married women were found to be least at risk of acquiring an HIV infection, while widowed women were observed to be most at risk.

Index Terms—Weight-of-evidence, information value, HIV, antenatal data.

The authors are with the School of Information Technology, North-West University, Vaal Triangle campus, Hendrik van Eck Boulevard, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa 1900 (e-mail: Wilbert.sibanda@nwu.ac.za, Philip.pretorius@nwu.ac.za).

Cite: Wilbert Sibanda and Philip Pretorius, "Weight of Evidence Model: Application in Tracking Changes in HIV Risk Profile Using 10 Year Annual Antenatal HIV Seroprevalence Data," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 212-217, 2014.