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Men’s Endorsement of Intimate Partner Violence and HIV Testing Behavior Across Sub-Saharan Africa

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Abstract

Despite an upward trend in HIV testing across sub-Saharan Africa, men continue to lag women in the use of HIV testing services. Inequitable gender attitudes held by some men may be implicated in their suboptimal HIV testing behaviors. We sought to ascertain the relationship between men?s endorsement of intimate partner violence (IPV), which is one manifestation of inequitable gender attitudes, and their lifetime and recent HIV testing, using nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey data from 23 sub-Saharan African countries. In a pooled analysis, we found that a unit increase in the IPV index scale is associated with 8% lower odds of lifetime HIV testing, and 6% lower odds of recent HIV testing. The strength of this relationship, however, varied across countries and regions. Our findings suggest that efforts to increase men?s HIV testing in the region should address the inequitable gender attitudes underpinning men?s endorsement of IPV, but that it is important to consider contextual variation.

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Data Availability

Data used in this work is available upon direct request from the DHS Program (dhsprogram.com).

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Code is available from first author upon request.

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This work was partially funded by the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences Summer Research Grant at the University of Colorado Denver.

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    Bonginkhosi Petros Vilakati, Stephanie Chamberlin & Sara Yeatman

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Study design (Bonginkhosi Petros Vilakati, Sara Yeatman), data analysis (all authors), drafting of manuscript (all authors), critical revision of manuscript (all authors), and final approval of submitted version (all authors).

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Vilakati, B.P., Chamberlin, S. & Yeatman, S. Men’s Endorsement of Intimate Partner Violence and HIV Testing Behavior Across Sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS Behav 27, 454–461 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-022-03780-9

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