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Partner Age Differences and Concurrency in South Africa: Implications for HIV-Infection Risk Among Young Women

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Abstract

Partner-age difference is an HIV-risk factor among young women in Africa, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We used nationally representative data among black South Africans (men: 3,530; women: 3,946) to examine the proportion of women in partnerships involving male partner concurrency by age of female partners and by age-disparate (≥5 years) partnerships. Of all partners reported by men, 35 % of young (16–24) women were in partnerships involving male partner concurrency of 4 weeks or longer during the past 12 months. Young women in age-disparate partnerships were more likely to be in partnerships with men who had other concurrent partners (9 %; OR 1.88 p < 0.01) and more likely to be connected to an older sexual network. Our results suggest that the relationship between male concurrency and age-disparate relationships may increase HIV risk for young women by connecting them to larger and older sexual networks.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI) at Brown University (USA) which provided partial support; additional support was also provided by NIH grants to Dr. Lurie (1R01MH083539, 1R24HD077976). The data used in this paper are from the Second National HIV Communication Survey (NCS). The NCS is a collaborative survey undertaken by Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa (JHHESA), LoveLife and Soul City. The survey was managed by Health and Development Africa (HDA). The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (JHU-CCP) provided technical support and oversight at all stages of the study. Data was gathered by Freshly Ground Insights (FGI). The study was funded by the Department of Health, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa

    Brendan Maughan-Brown

  2. HIV/STI Unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium

    Chris Kenyon

  3. Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Chris Kenyon

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Brown University School of Public Health, Providence, RI, USA

    Mark N. Lurie

  5. School of Public Health and Family and Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Mark N. Lurie

Authors
  1. Brendan Maughan-Brown
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  2. Chris Kenyon
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  3. Mark N. Lurie
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brendan Maughan-Brown.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Table, partner history table from the Second National Communication Survey, 2009 (DOC 49 kb)

10461_2014_828_MOESM2_ESM.doc

Figure, average age of partner’s other partner by age of women in all concurrent partnerships reported by men (DOC 251 kb)

Logistic regression model (DOC 49 kb)

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Maughan-Brown, B., Kenyon, C. & Lurie, M.N. Partner Age Differences and Concurrency in South Africa: Implications for HIV-Infection Risk Among Young Women. AIDS Behav 18, 2469–2476 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-014-0828-6

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