United States Agency for International Development and Children's Investment Fund Foundation.

No abstract

Context: Gender norms influence unintended pregnancy, maternal health, HIV/ AIDS infection, and act as barriers to reproductive health services. The Gender Equitable Men (GEM) scale has been used widely in programs and research in African settings, but it has yet to be statistically validated. Method: We examined the internal and external validity of the Inequitable Gender Norms (IGN) subscale of the GEM scale in Tanzania and Ghana using a two-step, mixed-method process. Confirmatory factor analysis tested the internal validity of the subscale and regression tests identified associations between the IGN scale and several HIV risk-related variables. Results: The IGN scale was shown to be a useful measure of gender norms in both countries. Excluding two questions that measured attitudes toward homosexuality, the scale met the hypothesized single factor structure. Furthermore,

No abstract

This paper explores individual, interpersonal-and household-level factors influencing HIV-related sexual risk behaviour among adolescent girls who participated in an intervention to reduce HIV risk in a rural setting in Mozambique. Twenty-eight adolescent girls ages 13-19, 30 heads of household, and 53 influential men participated in in-depth interviews at two time points. Comparative analysis compared girls who reported reducing risk behaviours over time to girls who did not and identified factors that respondents described as influential to behaviour change. Among the twenty girls self-reporting sexual risk at the first time point, half had reduced these behaviours one year later. Changes in girls' behaviours were contingent upon household-and interpersonal-level factors, particularly households' economic stability and family members' financial support. Future interventions with adolescents in similar settings should evaluate and leverage household and family support to achieve sexual risk reduction.