Sexual behaviours and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV

The majority of women in Uganda are sexually active, yet many do not take appropriate precautions to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. This paper discusses the factors associated with having had an STI during the past year for women of reproductive ages 15-49 years. Women may be prone to contracting STIs because of the behavior of their partners; however they too may be engaging in risky sexual behavior which could lead to this vice. Contracting STIs and worse still HIV could ultimately lead to both immediate and long-term negative consequences. Using data from the most recent Uganda Demographic and health Survey, a binary logistic regression is fitted to the data to examine the association between a number of sex partners and risk of contracting an STI in the year preceding the survey. In the model we also control for a number socioeconomic factors and age of the respondent. The findings show that the risk of contracting STIs were least in Northern region of Uganda compared to Kampala and other regions of the country. The findings sow that the odds of contracting STIs varied significantly with age and income. As expected, married and formerly married exhibited higher odds of contracting STIs compared to the unmarried. Having more than one partner significantly increased the odds of contracting an STI.

The objective of the study is to focus the selected morbidity pattern among the married women (15-49) and their treatment seeking behaviors of eastern states of India. Data have been used for this study obtained from the DLHS (2007-08). Bi-variate and Multivariate analysis have been used for this study. Result shows that the women from rural background are more suffer from menstruation and reproductive tract infections. Education has a positive impact on reproductive morbidity. Less than 10 years of education menstruation (24.4%) and reproductive tract infection (20.2%) both are high than women having above 10 years of education. Result of binary logistic regression shows that women residing in urban area are about 13% and 12 % less likely to have menstruation problems and RTI respectively. Women’s caste and education also found significant in this context. Women marring bellow 18 years shows higher chances to have menstruation and RTI related problems.

Trafficking of women for sexual exploitation is a prevalent problem that may adversely affect many aspects of women’s health. In this paper, we examine how sexual exploitation is exposing trafficked women to HIV infection and sexually transmitted diseases in urban Mexico. This study was conducted in Mexico City and Monterrey, where one hundred and ten trafficked women were interviewed during the year 2003-2006 and 2007-2011. Results indicate that trafficked women are physically and sexually abused and engage in high-risk sexual behavior leading to infection with different kinds of sexually transmitted diseases. This abuse, high-risk behavior coupled with high numbers of clients serviced daily, indicates these trafficked women are at a higher risk of HIV infection.

The SSA HIV epidemic presents patterns that challenge conventional understandings of the relationships between SES and health. It has often been assumed that Africa’s status as the continent with the highest HIV infection rates is linked to endemic high poverty and a corresponding lack of access to adequate health care resources. Somewhat surprisingly, a growing number of studies show that wealthier individuals (irrespective of gender), wealthier regions (urban areas), and wealthier countries within SSA often display the highest levels of HIV infection.Despite evidence of a positive SES-HIV gradient, researchers and policy-makers frequently assume that range of protective interventions – increasing awareness of mechanisms of HIV transmission, techniques for prevention, greater access to health care facilities, and greater availability of condoms – will reduce the likelihood of contracting HIV, even among higher SES populations. We explore the relationships between SES and a range of intervening risk factors to illuminate the complex causal processes that link SES and HIV in Cameroon.Results show at least through 2004 any benefit that may have accrued from high SES appears to be offset by higher riskier sexual practices – including more premarital sexual activity, higher numbers of sexual partners, and higher rates of infidelity

This paper is an effort to analyze the prevalence of premarital sex and use of condom among men in India. Using National Family Health Survey, third round (2005-06) data, the study found that premarital sex is higher in rural than urban India. However, it also found that even though unmarried men in rural India are sexually more active than urban men but use of condom is minimal. The result of binary logistic regression shows that unmarried men those who consume alcohol are 1.801 more likely to indulge in sexual activity than their counterpart group without alcohol. Similarly, working men are 1.175 more likely to be sexually active before marriage than unmarried men with no working status. The prevalence of premarital sex is significantly high among teenagers i.e. 15-19 years.

Background: Cross-sectional studies have linked multiple sexual partnerships to high risk of contracting HIV-infection among adolescents and young adults, and evidences about the social context of multiple sexual partnerships are scarce in South Africa.

Methods: Multilevel analysis was carried out using the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS) data collected among young people living in Cape Town between 2002 and 2005.

Findings: The practice of multiple sexual partnerships (current) declined from 29 percent in 2002 to 16 percent in 2005 with a concomitant increase in the practice of abstinence and monogamy from 71 percent at the baseline to 84 percent in 2005. Using multilevel logistic regression model and controlling for all the variables in the study, the predictors of multiple sexual partnerships between 2002 and 2005 were sex of the respondents, population group, educational level, rating of opportunity in life, degree of happiness, alcohol/drug use, participation in prosocial activities and early sexual activity.

Conclusion: There was a decline in the practice of multiple sexual partnerships during the study period and different factors, both personal and contextual, significantly predict the outcome variable and should be focus of intervention programmes.

In the context of low-income slums of Mumbai, the present study is an effort to highlight the social circumstances under which adolescents are involved in alcohol abuse and risky sexual behaviour. It is worthwhile to mention that low income urban slums in Mumbai provide a conducive environment for adolescents to indulge in deviant behaviors. The basic data used for this paper has been derived from a World AIDS Foundation (WAF) sponsored project entitled “Alcohol use and sexual risk taking in low income slum areas of Mumbai, India" Conducted under the auspices of IIPS, Mumbai with ICR and UCHC, Connecticut, USA as partners. The qualitative insights that emerged from the in-depth interviews reveal that the presence of beer bars, especially ladies bars, video parlors and proximity to brothel based commercial sex opportunities offer an extremely conducive environment for risky social transactions among adolescents. Study findings clearly reveal that adolescents from low-income slum communities are actively involved in unsafe sex. These findings coupled with lack of source of knowledge put the adolescents at a higher level of risk in the context of HIV epidemic hence merits attention to improve awareness about safe sex preferably through schools or CBOs interventions.

Intimate partner relationship provides emotional support and social security to FSWs despite sometimes putting safe sexual practices at stake. This paper analyzes prevalence of STIs among FSWs having intimate partner relationships in the last 12 months prior to survey in Nepal. Information pertains to 1401 respondents selected following a modified time-location cluster sampling. Findings reveal that protective sex with intimate partner is reported by less than half of FSWs and is even lower among married FSWs. STI prevalence is higher among this group with 1/3rd reporting the symptoms in last 12 months, which can be attributed to the unprotected sex. Age above 30, illiteracy and currently married status have significant affect on the STI prevalence among this group. Further, marital status and coital frequency seems to have a significant effect on the condom use behaviour of the FSW. It is seen that those who are unmarried are 0.3 times (p<0.01) less likely to use condom as compared to their counterparts. Literacy and migratory status are significantly affecting the prevalence of STI. Understanding the worth of intimate partners in an FSW’s life, strategies should be devised to promote protective sex in intimate partner relationships in order to combat its serious bearings on STIs among the group.

Sub-Saharan Africa is not only the most affected region of the world by HIV/AIDS, but also the setting where the epidemic among adolescents is the fastest growing. Multiple sexual partners and lack of condom use remain two of the most important risk factors of HIV spread among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, yet research on this issue is limited.
Using data from nationally-representative survey of adolescents, this study examines the simultaneous effects of individual, socio-economic and contextual factors on multiple sexual partners and consistent condom use among adolescent of 12-19 years old in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda. Findings from bivariate probit models show that the two most important factors associated with protective behaviors are formal education and parental monitoring, with adolescents who reported high parental control being less likely to have had multiple sexual partners and more likely to have used condom consistently than adolescents who reported lower levels of parental control. In terms of policy and programmatic implications, this result is very important and suggests that parents’ influence over their children’s behavior, widely assumed to have declined, remains both important and pertinent to reproductive health interventions to reduce the vulnerability of adolescents to HIV and STIs.

The study examines the sexual behaviour of adolescents living in two urban poor areas in two municipalities in the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana – to ascertain the extent of sexual activity in the two areas and whether condom is patronized at high risk sex. Using systematic sampling, a total of 501 questionnaires were administered to adolescents in the two municipalities. Bi-variate and multi-variate statistical methods are used to examine the results. A logistic regression model is used to examine the correlates of adolescents’ sexual behaviour. Odds ratio was calculated for adolescents’ sexual behaviour. After calculating the odds ratios, a command ‘listcoef, percent help’ was run in STATA and this provide us with the percent increase per a unit change in a variable. The results show that male adolescents were having sex 0.8 years earlier than their female counterparts. First sexual intercourse among the adolescent was mostly planned. The results revealed that multiple sexual relation was uncommon among the adolescents. Logistic regression results shows that age had a direct and significant relationship with adolescents’ sexual behaviour. For instance, at .001, there was more than 519 percent increase in the likelihoo