HIV Vulnerability Typologies Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Lesotho: A Population-Based, Cross-Sectional, Latent Class Analysis.
Cho-Hee Shrader, Straso Jovanovski, Suzue Saito and 3 others
PMID 39787328WHAT IT FOUND
In Lesotho, within each age group from 15 to 29, the high-vulnerability group had higher HIV prevalence than low-vulnerability or parous groups.
The high-risk profile clustered several sexual behaviors, not one single risk.
Key findings
01HIV seropositivity increased with age: 4% of those aged 15–19 years, 13% of those aged 20–24 years, and 28% of those aged 25–29 years.
02Among those aged 15–19 years, the high-vulnerability class had higher odds of HIV seropositivity than the low-vulnerability class (odds ratio 3.54, 95% confidence interval 1.09–11.51).
03Among those aged 25–29 years, the high-vulnerability class had higher odds of HIV seropositivity than the parous class (odds ratio 3.73, 95% confidence interval 2.32–5.99).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study measured behaviors and HIV status at one time, so it cannot show that any behavior caused HIV or that class membership changes over time. The latent class models depended on the authors' choices among fit indices and subjective judgments about model parsimony, and a different model could have produced different associations. The analysis did not assess sexual or physical violence, which the paper notes are known factors for HIV acquisition. For ages 15–19, participants who reported never having sex were excluded from the latent class analysis, so the classes apply only to the remaining 566 in that age group. The label low-vulnerability is relative within each age group; in ages 20–24, the low-vulnerability group had 9.52% HIV prevalence, and in ages 25–29, the low-vulnerability and parous groups had 22.42% and 23.47% HIV prevalence.
Declared interests
The authors report no real or perceived vested interests related to this article.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the high-vulnerability class as proof that any single behavior causes HIV or that a targeted intervention works. This is a cross-sectional survey, and the paper reports associations between latent classes and HIV serostatus, not tested effects.