{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,28]],"date-time":"2026-10-28T01:37:35Z","timestamp":1793151455928,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,24]],"date-time":"2025-01-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1737676800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background<\/jats:title><jats:p>Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains the leading cause of global morbidity and mortality. The incidence of HIV is disproportionately higher in Sub-Saharan regions, particularly the Southern African sub-region, which is the most affected region and accounts for 77% of all new HIV infections in the region. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify the determinants of HIV among reproductive-age women in Africa.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study was conducted among reproductive-age women in Africa, based on secondary data obtained from the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) conducted between 2010 and 2019. The outcome variable was HIV status, while individual- and community-level variables served as potential predictors. The model fit was assessed using Akaike\u2019s Information Criterion, Bayesian Information Criterion, and\u202f\u2212\u202f2 Log likelihood. Then, multilevel mixed-effects analysis was used. Intra-cluster correlation coefficient, median odds ratio, and proportional change in variance were used to measure heterogeneity between clusters.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>A total of 292,810 unweighted and 293,773 weighted reproductive-age women in 26 African nations were included in this study. The overall prevalence of HIV among reproductive-age women in Africa was 4.34% (95% CI: 4.2, 4.4%). The highest percentage of HIV was found in Lesotho (23.98%), followed by South Africa (19.12%), and Mozambique (14.67%). However, the lowest HIV prevalence was found in Niger (0.54%), Senegal (0.59%), and Burundi (0.79%). Southern Africa has the highest HIV burden (18.5%), followed by Eastern Africa (6.1%), while Western African countries have the lowest HIV burden. Increasing maternal age, higher maternal education, women who were unemployed, a history of multiple sexual partners, women in a union, community-level educational status, community-level wealth index, African sub-region, and urban residence were found to be independent predictors of HIV infection in Africa.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>The burden of HIV has remained higher, highlighting the need for targeted public health intervention strategies to prevent the transmission of HIV among key populations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2024.1376235","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,24]],"date-time":"2025-01-24T10:36:47Z","timestamp":1737715007000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":18,"title":["Prevalence and determinants of HIV among reproductive-age women (15\u201349\u202fyears) in Africa from 2010 to 2019: a multilevel analysis 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