Adverse childhood experiences, sexual debut and HIV testing among adolescents in a low-income high HIV-prevalence context
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Updated: Jan 20, 2026

Rapid Screening of HIV Reverse Transcriptase and Integrase Inhibitors
Published on: April 9, 2014
Rachel Kidman1, Hans-Peter Kohler
1aProgram in Public Health and Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook University (State University of New York), Stony Brook, New York bDepartment of Sociology and Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Objectives:
To investigate whether adverse childhood experiences are important determinants of sexual debut and HIV testing.
Design:
Adolescents (age 10-16; N = 2089) from rural Malawi were interviewed in 2017-2018 for the baseline wave of a longitudinal study of childhood adversity and HIV risk.
Methods:
Respondents were interviewed in their local language. Surveys captured 13 lifetime childhood adversities (using the Adverse Childhood Experience - International Questionnaire); sexual debut; and previous HIV testing. We used multivariate regression models to test whether adversity, measured both cumulatively and separately, predicted HIV risk.
Results:
For each additional adversity, there was a significant rise in the odds of sexual debut (odds ratio 1.13, confidence interval 1.07-1.20) and HIV testing (odds ratio 1.10, confidence interval 1.04-1.16).
Conclusion:
Preventing HIV among all young people necessitates a paradigm shift that recognizes the importance of early life social determinants in structuring HIV risk.
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