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Okoye, Helen Uche

University of British Columbia

HIV risk behaviour among young people contributes to the high HIV prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many studies in the region examine the independent association between contextual factors and HIV risk behaviour, while less attention has been paid to the multiple social factors that simultaneously link to HIV risk behaviour. Multivariate logistic regression models tested the ecological factors that had additional link to HIV risk behaviour among unmarried sexually active young people (15-24 years). Accounting for contextual factors, and adjusting for HIV-related knowledge, the findings revealed that, in addition to other country-specific structural factors, adolescents from the lowest socioeconomic class had significantly higher odds of having been initiated into sexual intercourse before their 15th birthday in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC (aOR=1.49 (1.11-1.980, p=.007), and Kenya (aOR=1.33 (1.03-1.70), p=.03), and were four times, above two times, and 66% more likely to have engaged in condomless sex in Angola, DRC, and Cameroon. Similarly, those who had no education or attended only primary school were more likely to initiate sex early in Angola (aOR=1.85 (1.42-2.40), p<.001), DRC (aOR=1.36 (1.01-1.82, p= .04), Kenya (aOR=1.73 (1.39-2.16), p<.001), and South Africa (aOR=2.26 (1.38-3.72), p=.001). Adolescents from female-headed households in Angola were 23% more likely to initiate sex before their 15th birthday compared to those who came from male-headed households, and in Nigeria, young people from the least and moderate dominant groups were 69% and 89% more likely to have had two or more sexual partners compared to those who belong to the most dominant groups. Adolescent girls were more likely to engage in condomless sex compared to boys in seven out of eight countries. Nonetheless, girls were less likely to report early sexual debut and a higher number of sexual partners in many countries. In conclusion, poverty and marginalization significantly link to HIV risk behaviour among young people in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings of the study have important implications for the implementation of targeted HIV risk reduction programs in both low- and high-HIV-burden countries to prevent a resurgence of the epidemic in countries that are already on track toward meeting global targets for HIV eradication.

Text

2024-08-06

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88887

Nursing

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/