Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Globally, adolescent girls and young women AGYW are disproportionately impacted by economic, demographic, and social factors associated with a wide range of negative outcomes. The objective of this study was to use latent class analysis LCA to identify groupings of AGYW in Lesotho based on patterns of gendered risk factors, and to assess the association between the identified groupings and intimate partner violence IPV and low educational attainment.
AGYW reported gendered risk factors: teen pregnancy, child marriage, intergenerational sex, early sexual debut, being HIV positive, transactional sex, endorsement of one or more negative traditional gender norms, and one or more norms supportive of violence against women. LCA identified latent classes of eight gendered risk factors. Multivariable logistic regression assessed associations between latent classes and IPV victimization and low educational attainment.
A three-class solution was selected, and classes were named as: Low Risk class, Behavioral Risk class, and Attitudinal Risk class. In Lesotho, gendered risk factors form distinct classes that have variable associations with low educational attainment and IPV. LCA can be an important approach to better understand the complicated relationship gendered risk factors have with each other and with certain outcomes, to further elucidate the influence that gender has on the health of AGYW and to provide more targeted prevention programming.
Globally, adolescent girls and young women AGYW are disproportionately impacted by economic, demographic, and social factors associated with a wide range of negative health and social outcomes. In many countries, gender intersects with social determinants of health, resulting in factors such as child marriage and early pregnancy that are associated with poor health outcomes and lower educational attainment Nour, ; WHO, Gender also appears to moderate the relationship between certain risk factors and health outcomes.
In one study, early sexual debut was related to sexually transmitted infections in females but not males, and females and males experienced depressive symptoms related to early sexual debut differently Kugler et al.
