Peer-reviewed article
Associations Between Substance Use, Sexual Violence, Mental Distress, and Sexual HIV Risk Behaviors Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Lesotho.
Miedema SS, Tracy AJ, Logan J, Ramphalla P ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how sexual violence, substance use, and mental distress relate to HIV risk behaviors among adolescent girls and young women aged 13-24 in Lesotho. Using data from a national survey, researchers grouped young women by different patterns of these risk factors and looked for associations with unsafe sex practices. The findings suggest that interventions addressing sexual violence and substance use could help reduce HIV risk in this population.
Key points
- Adolescent girls and young women in eastern and southern Africa face disproportionately high new HIV infection rates
- Multiple behavioral risk factors—sexual violence exposure, substance use, and mental distress—co-occur in distinct patterns among AGYW
- Some adversity groups showed significant associations with infrequent condom use and multiple sexual partners
- The study used nationally representative data from the 2018 Lesotho Violence Against Children and Youth Survey
Limitations
The study is cross-sectional and cannot establish causation or determine the direction of relationships between risk factors and HIV behaviors. It does not evaluate a specific intervention but rather observes associations in existing data.
Abstract
Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) are disproportionately burdened by new HIV infections in eastern and southern Africa. Data on co-occurrence of behavioral risk factors and associations with sexual HIV risk behaviors can inform layered and targeted HIV prevention efforts. Using nationally representative data of AGYW aged 13-24 years from the 2018 Lesotho Violence Against Children and Youth Survey, we categorized the population into distinct adversity groups comprised of different pattens of sexual violence exposure, substance use, and moderate/severe mental distress. We estimated associations of adversity groups with infrequent condom use and past-year multiple sexual partners. We observed significant associations between some groups and infrequent condom use and multiple sexual partners. Interventions to prevent sexual violence and substance use, in particular, may help reduce sexual HIV risk behaviors and thus HIV prevalence among this population in Lesotho.