The taboo gap: implications for adolescent risk of HIV infection

Trend of new cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus infections in two health facilities in the Northern Cameroon between 2021-2022

“…The study found that the Islamic religion is more accepting of polygamy and the establishment of a patriarchal society. Nesamoney et al conducted an epidemiological and observational study in Zambia that suggests religion [35] and ethnicity/race [36], particularly the associated practices, are significant factors in understanding the trend of HIV infection among Muslims. One of the socio-behavioural factors that facilitates HIV acquisition is having had unprotected sex (n=5; P<0.007).…”

“…The spread of the disease could be attributed to socio-cultural lifestyle factors such as eating in a common dish, sharing same needle for scarification, as well as reluctance to seek treatment, resulting in an increase in new infection cases caused by the Hepatitis B virus [32]. suggests religion [35] and ethnicity/race [36], particularly the associated practices, are significant factors in understanding the trend of HIV infection among Muslims. One of the socio-behavioural factors that facilitates HIV acquisition is having had unprotected sex (n=5; P<0.007).…”

Effect of imbalanced sampling and missing data on associations between gender norms and risk of adolescent HIV

“…Based on existing datasets, we simulated the impact of gender- and age-imbalanced (referred to as gender-age-imbalanced) sampling and covariate missingness on measurements of the effect of communal norms amongst adults regarding premarital sex (self-reported attitudes and data-derived measures of behaviours; Appendix, equations [2] and [3]) upon adolescents’ risk of HIV infection. Our prior research – which showed that adolescents in Zambian communities with increasing communal discordance between attitudes and behaviors regarding pre-marital sex are at increasing risk of HIV infection, 1 , 25 , 26 – relied on data for multiple individual-level (e.g., education status) and pooled community-level (e.g., intimate partner violence exposure) covariates. We hypothesised that our analytic models are sensitive to gender-age sampling imbalance and data missingness, and defined gender-age-imbalance as gender-age distributions that meaningfully diverge from the distribution of the balanced Zambian dataset.…”

“… 1 , 24 In particular, prior analyses using Zambian DHS data demonstrated that as community-level discordance or incongruity between adults’ professed attitudes and apparent behaviours regarding pre-marital sex widened, the risk for HIV acquisition increased for adolescent girls in that community. 2 , 24 , 25 This survey (2007 Zambia DHS) was uniquely balanced in asking normative questions on pre-marital sex of men about men and women and of women about men and women, providing powerful quantitative insights on the effect this gender norm. Here we extend this analysis to gain insights into the effects of gender- and age-imbalanced and missing covariate data on gender-health outcomes.…”