ReviewSexual and reproductive health matters2023
Associations of social media and health content use with sexual risk behaviours among adolescents in South Africa.
Review in Sexual and reproductive health matters, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Examining Social Media User Types and the Impact on a Reproductive Health Web-Based Intervention for Young People in Francophone West Africa: Randomized Factorial Design Using Latent Class Analysis.JMIR formative research · 2026Trial
- Spatiotemporal heterogeneity and socioeconomic determinants of syphilis incidence in Xining, Northwest China: a geospatial analysis.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- The state of youth sexual and reproductive health problems and service utilisation in major towns of Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Accelerating achievement for Africa's adolescents.Contemporary social science · 2025Article
- Influence of socio-contextual factors on the link between traditional and new media use, and young people's sexual risk behaviour in Sub-Saharan Africa: a secondary data analysis.Reproductive health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedCorrection.2023
Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Increasing rates of mobile phone access present potential new opportunities and risks for adolescents' sexual and reproductive health in resource-poor settings. We investigated associations between mobile phone access/use and sexual risks in a cohort of 10-24-year-olds in South Africa. 1563 adolescents (69% living with HIV) were interviewed in three waves between 2014 and 2018. We assessed mobile phone access and use to search for health content and social media. Self-reported sexual risks included: sex after substance use, unprotected sex, multiple sexual partnerships and inequitable sexual partnerships in the past 12 months. We examined associations between mobile phone access/use and sexual risks using covariate-adjusted mixed-effects logistic regression models. Mobile phone access alone was not associated with any sexual risks. Social media use alone (vs. no mobile phone access) was associated with a significantly increased probability of unprotected sex (adjusted average marginal effects [AMEs] + 4.7 percentage points [ppts], 95% CI 1.6-7.8). However, health content use (vs. no mobile phone access) was associated with significantly decreased probabilities of sex after substance use (AMEs -5.3 ppts, 95% CI -7.4 to -3.2) and unprotected sex (AMEs -7.5 ppts, 95% CI -10.6 to -4.4). Moreover, mobile phone access and health content use were associated with increased risks of multiple sexual partnerships in boys. Health content use was associated with increased risks of inequitable sexual partnerships in adolescents not living with HIV. Results suggest an urgent need for strategies to harness mobile phone use for protection from growing risks due to social media exposure.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.