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Abstract

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