"According to the first stage of our research, there is no significant difference between children, based on their orphan status," Quinlan said. Orphaned children are doing as well in school and engaging in the same level of risk behavior as their non-orphaned counterparts.
Instead, he said, orphaned and non-orphaned children alike are made especially vulnerable by poverty. "In the context of HIV/AIDS and poverty, the welfare of children is not necessarily going to change just because of HIV/AIDS; the welfare of a child can be very bad just because the parents are poor."