Muchiri Evans, Odimegwu Clifford, Banda Pamela, Ntoimo Lorreta, Adedini Sunday
a Demography and Population Studies Programme, Schools of Public Health and Social Sciences , University of the Witwatersrand , Johannesburg , South Africa.
b Department of Demography and Social Statistics , Federal University Oye-Ekiti , Oye-Ekiti , Ekiti State , Nigeria.
Afr J AIDS Res. 2017 Jul;16(2):119-128. doi: 10.2989/16085906.2017.1318762. Epub 2017 Jun 22.
Studies in South Africa have reported unsafe levels of risky sexual behvaiours among adolescents and young adults, with the country reporting the highest burden of HIV/AIDS globally, as well as a high rate of teenage pregnancy. While determinants of risky sexual behaviours have been investigated for factors occurring at the individual and household levels, not fully explored in the literature is the effect of community level factors. Furthermore, it is unclear whether risk factors occurring within the ecology of adolescents and young adults act cumulatively to influence their sexual practices. This article aims to address this knowledge gap using a case study of the Cape Area Panel Study of adolescents and young adults in urban Cape Town, South Africa. The ecological framework was adopted to guide the selection of risk factors at the individual, household, and community levels. Multivariate linear discriminant function analyses were used to select significant risk factors for multiple sexual partnerships and used to produce risk indices for the respondents. The cumulative risk approach was applied to test whether significant risk factors acted cumulatively. Findings point to the importance of ecological factors in influencing outcomes of multiple sexual partnerships among respondents and further demonstrate that ecological risk factors may act cumulatively. These findings are important for South Africa that is grappling with teenage pregnancy and disproportionate HIV epidemic among the youth.
南非的研究报告称，青少年和青年中存在不安全的危险性行为，该国是全球艾滋病毒/艾滋病负担最重的国家，青少年怀孕率也很高。虽然已针对个人和家庭层面出现的因素对危险性行为的决定因素进行了调查，但社区层面因素的影响在文献中尚未得到充分探讨。此外，尚不清楚青少年和青年生态环境中出现的风险因素是否会累积起来影响他们的性行为。本文旨在通过对南非开普敦市区青少年和青年的开普地区小组研究案例来填补这一知识空白。采用生态框架来指导在个人、家庭和社区层面选择风险因素。多元线性判别函数分析用于选择多个性伴侣的重要风险因素，并用于为受访者生成风险指数。采用累积风险方法来检验重要风险因素是否会累积起作用。研究结果表明生态因素在影响受访者多个性伴侣的结果方面具有重要性，并进一步证明生态风险因素可能会累积起作用。这些发现对于正在应对青少年怀孕和青年中不成比例的艾滋病毒流行问题的南非来说很重要。
