2022 IB Diploma Extended Essays

1.1Justification of Selected Countries (Australia, South Africa, Botswana) For this study on HIV/AIDS, Australia, South Africa, and Botswana were chosen as case studies. These three countries were selected due to their differences in level of economic development and standard of health as measured by Gross Domestic Product and the happiness index. GDP is defined as ‘the total market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific period (Fernando, 2022). South Africa is an upper-middle-income economy. However, ranked 6 th in the world in adult HIV rates, as shown in figure 1, at approximately 19.94%, South Africa remains one of the largest AIDS epicenters in Africa. Botswana is a less developed country than South Africa and being ranked 1 st in the world, Botswana has the highest adult HIV rate at approximately 35.80% shown in figure 1. In contrast with the case studies of South Africa and Botswana, which show high rates of HIV, Australia was selected with a higher standard economy. In comparison, Australia has very low rate of HIV as low as 0.001%. Therefore, such parallels and differences between the case studies in the standard of health, level of economic development and standard of living would enable a sufficient and thorough evaluation of the effects of HIV on different socioeconomic factors of the three countries and vice versa. Standard of living is defined as the quantity and quality of material goods and services available to a given population. Typically, this can be measured by GDP. However, the limitation of this measurement is that it does not consider the level of income inequality in a nation. For example, GDP does not consider if 10% of households earn 80% of the total income of a country (khanacademy, 2019). Ultimately, this will aid in exploring the relationship between HIV prevalence and socioeconomic factors.

4