ArticleBMJ open2025
Early sexual debut among unmarried adolescent girls and young women in Tanzania: analysis of the 2022 Demographic Health Survey on the role of coercion at first sex.
Article in BMJ open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
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
objectiveIn Tanzania, the problem of early sexual initiation among adolescent girls and adolescent girls and young women has remained a persistent public health and human rights challenge that continues to draw the attention of policymakers. Evidence suggests that in some parts of the country, as much as 70% of women had their sexual debut as minors, underscoring the urgency to understand all drivers of early sexual debut among this population. While scholars have pointed to addressing a range of factors that work to expose adolescent girls and young women to early sexual initiation, the role of coercion at first sex has been less explored. DESIGN AND
settingWe used cross-sectional data from the 2022 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey.
participantsA total sample of 1242 sexually active unmarried adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24. MEASURES: Our study relied on logistic regression models to examine the role of coerced sex on early sexual initiation among sexually active unmarried adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 years in Tanzania.
resultsWe found that 31% and 14% of sexually active unmarried adolescent girls and young women experienced early sexual initiation and coerced first sex, respectively. At the bivariate level, we discovered that those who indicated that they willingly wanted to have their first sex were less likely to initiate sex early (OR=0.44, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.72). At the multivariate level, the significance of these relationships largely holds, even after sequentially accounting for sociodemographic (OR=0.50, 95% CI 0.30 to 0.82) and HIV-related characteristics (OR=0.50, 95% CI to 0.30 to 0.83).
conclusionsWe recommend re-examination of policy addressing early sexual initiation in Tanzania by incorporating coerced sex as one of the major determinants needing urgent attention. Intensifying awareness creation on the risk of early sexual initiation through coerced sex, especially among adolescent girls and boys, will go a long way to help reduce the incidence of early sexual initiation.
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.