Browsing by Author "Mah, Timothy"

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    Concurrent sexual partnerships and HIV transmission in Khayelitsha, South Africa
    (2008) Mah, Timothy
    Concurrent partnerships - two or more partnerships that overlap in time - play a critical role in HIV transmission dynamics. By better understanding the epidemiological and socio-cultural role of multiple concurrent partnerships, primary behavior change approaches to HIV prevention can be more effective and appropriately targeted in sexually-transmitted, generalized epidemics such as in South Africa. This paper contributes to the growing body of knowledge about the role that concurrent sexual partnerships play as a risk factor for HIV infection. The first section reviews the literature on concurrent partnerships. The second section presents data on the frequency of concurrent sexual partnerships and correlates of such partnerships using a representative sample of adults in Khayelitsha. The analysis found that 17% of adults in married or regular partnerships reported concurrency, with men reporting significantly more concurrency. Engaging in concurrency was correlated with being less religious and with knowledge that your primary partner also had concurrent partners.
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    Concurrent sexual partnerships and HIV/AIDS among youths in the Cape Metropolitan area
    (2008) Mah, Timothy
    Concurrent sexual partnerships are increasingly recognized as an important behavioural driver of HIV epidemics, particularly in southern Africa. The prevalence of HIV among young people in South Africa can be reduced by decreases in sexual risk behaviours, including engaging in concurrent partnerships. This analysis examines the frequency and correlates of concurrency in a representative multi-racial young adult (aged 16-26) population in the Cape Metropolitan Area, using multivariate logistic regression. Overall, approximately 13% of sexually active young adults reported concurrency during their last sexual partnership, though there was significant variability by sex and race, ranging from 33% of young Black men to 2% of young Coloured women reporting concurrency. Concurrency was associated with other high risk behaviours, including a higher number of lifetime sex partners and a lower age of sexual debut. Future prevention effects among young adults will need to address concurrency in order to minimize the risk of HIV infection.
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    Concurrent sexual partnerships and the HIV epidemics in Africa: evidence to move forward
    (Springer Verlag, 2008) Mah, Timothy; Halperin, Daniel
    The role of concurrent sexual partnerships is increasingly recognized as important for the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, particularly of heterosexual HIV transmission in Africa. Modeling and empirical evidence suggest that concurrent partnerships - compared to serial partnerships - can increase the size of an HIV epidemic, the speed at which it infects a population, and its persistence within a population. This selective review of the published and unpublished literature on concurrent partnerships examines various definitions and strategies for measuring concurrency, the prevalence of concurrency from both empirical and modeling studies, the biological plausibility of concurrency, and the social and cultural underpinnings of concurrency in southern Africa.?
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    Social and cultural contexts of concurrency in a township in Cape Town, South Africa
    (Culture, Health and Sexuality, 2015-05-28) Mah, Timothy; Maughan-Brown, Brendan