SynthesisJournal of the International AIDS Society2016
Transactional sex and risk for HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Journal of the International AIDS Society, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 125 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
125 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Differentiating the incidence and burden of HIV by age among women who sell sex: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of daily, oral pre-exposure prophylaxis on the risk of bacterial sexually transmitted infections among cisgender women: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.Wellcome open research · 2022Pooled it
- Adolescent condom use in Southern Africa: narrative systematic review and conceptual model of multilevel barriers and facilitators.BMC public health · 2021Pooled it
- Health Risk Behaviour among Adolescents Living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.BioMed research international · 2018Pooled it
- The effect of protecting women against economic shocks to fight HIV in Cameroon, Africa: The POWER randomised controlled trial.PLoS medicine · 2024Trial
- Correlates of Adherence to Oral and Vaginal Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) Participating in the MTN-034/REACH Trial.AIDS and behavior · 2024Trial
- Transactional sex among adolescent girls and young women enrolled in a cash plus intervention in rural Tanzania: a mixed-methods study.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2022Trial
- Impact of Family-Based Economic Empowerment Intervention, Suubi+Adherence (2012-2018) on Multidimensional Poverty for Adolescents Living with HIV (ALWHIV) in Uganda.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
- Effectiveness of Cash Transfer Delivered Along With Combination HIV Prevention Interventions in Reducing the Risky Sexual Behavior of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Tanzania: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2022Trial
- 'It's because I like things… it's a status and he buys me airtime': exploring the role of transactional sex in young women's consumption patterns in rural South Africa (secondary findings from HPTN 068).Reproductive health · 2018Trial
- Sexual Relationship Typologies, Multilevel Determinants, and HIV Among Adolescent Mothers in Eastern and Southern Africa: A Multilevel Latent Class Analysis.AIDS and behavior · 2026Article
- Why do adolescent girls become pregnant? Contextual pathways to adolescent pregnancy in rural Tanzania: a mixed-methods study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- A comparative analysis of social support, risk behaviors, and HIV health service use among adolescent and young males and females in Lusaka, Zambia.Global epidemiology · 2026Article
- When context matters: Multilevel determinants of self-reported sexually transmitted infections symptoms among men engaged in transactional sex in 26 Sub-Saharan African countries.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Associations between water insecurity and reproductive health outcomes among adolescent girls and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Sociocultural and Structural Determinants Affecting Women's Health Among Female Sex Workers in Cameroon: A Qualitative Pilot Study.International journal of women's health · 2026Article
- Transactional sex and intersecting vulnerabilities: a multicountry cross-sectional study of pregnant and parenting adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Article
- Predictors of multiple sexual partnerships and condom use among men engaged in transactional sex: a recursive bivariate probit analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys from 26 Sub-Saharan African countries.Tropical medicine and health · 2025Article
- Does the Risk Premium Differ Between Women Engaging in Commercial and Transactional Sex? Evidence From Urban Cameroon.Health economics · 2025Article
65 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionYoung women aged 15 to 24 years in sub-Saharan Africa continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV. A growing number of studies have suggested that the practice of transactional sex may in part explain women's heightened risk, but evidence on the association between transactional sex and HIV has not yet been synthesized. We set out to systematically review studies that assess the relationship between transactional sex and HIV among men and women in sub-Saharan Africa and to summarize the findings through a meta-analysis.
methodsThe search strategy included 8 databases, hand searches in 10 journals, and searches across 17 websites and portals for organizations as informed by expert colleagues. A systematic review of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies was carried out for studies on women and men who engage in transactional sex published up through 2014. Random effects meta-analysis was used to further examine the relationship between transactional sex and prevalent HIV infection across a subset of studies with the same exposure period. Analyses were conducted separately for men and women.
resultsNineteen papers from 16 studies met our inclusion criteria. Of these 16 studies, 14 provided data on women and 10 on men. We find a significant, positive, unadjusted or adjusted association between transactional sex and HIV in 10 of 14 studies for women, one of which used a longitudinal design (relative risk (RR)=2.06, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.22 -3.48). Out of 10 studies involving men, only 2 indicate a positive association between HIV and transactional sex in unadjusted or adjusted models. The meta-analysis confirmed general findings from the systematic review (unadjusted meta-analysis findings are significant for women (
conclusionsTransactional sex is associated with HIV among women, whereas findings for men were inconclusive. Given that only two studies used a longitudinal approach, there remains a need for better measurement of the practice of transactional sex and additional longitudinal studies to establish the causal pathways between transactional sex and HIV.
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