Age at First Sexual Intercourse and Multiple Sexual Partnership Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Cross-Sectional Study
Ahinkorah, Bright Opoku, Aboagye, Richard Gyan, Donkoh, Irene Esi, Okyere, Joshua, Seidu, Abdul-Aziz, and Yaya, Sanni (2025) Age at First Sexual Intercourse and Multiple Sexual Partnership Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Cross-Sectional Study. Health Science Reports, 8 (5). e70798.
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Abstract
Background: There is evidence that early sexual debut plays a key role in the sexual behaviours of individuals. This study examined the association between age at first sexual intercourse and multiple sexual partnership among adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods: Our study included twenty-two sub-Saharan African countries with data sourced from the Demographic and Health Survey (2015–2022). We included a weighted sample of 69,194 adolescent girls and young women in our study. We presented the results of the proportion of adolescent girls and young women who practiced multiple sexual partnerships using ‘spmap’ in Stata. We performed a multivariable binary logistic regression analysis to examine the association between age at first sex and multiple sexual partnerships, controlling for the covariates.
Results: Overall, only 4.63% of adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa engaged in multiple sexual partnerships. The hotspot countries for multiple sexual partnerships were Gabon (13.98%), Liberia (11.36%), Cameroon (7.84%), Cote d'Ivoire (7.59%), Kenya (7.33%), Tanzania (6.74%), and Sierra Leone (6.69%). Compared to young women whose age at first sex was 18 years and above, those who had their first sexual intercourse from 15 to 17 years and 14 years and below had higher odds of engaging in multiple sexual partnerships ([aOR=2.28; 95%CI: 1.96, 2.65] and [aOR=3.28; 95%CI: 2.76, 3.89]), respectively.
Conclusion: Our study has shown that age at first sex is a risk factor for multiple sexual partnerships. Consequently, it becomes imperative for sub-Saharan African countries to develop policies and implement programs aimed at discouraging early sexual debut. One practical approach to achieve this is through the widespread adoption of comprehensive sex education programs across sub-Saharan African countries.
| Item ID: | 88108 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2398-8835 |
| Keywords: | adolescent girls, age at first sexual intercourse, Demographic and Health Survey, multiple sexual partnerships, sub-Saharan Africa, young women |
| Copyright Information: | This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2025 The Author(s). Health Science Reports published by Wiley Periodicals LLC |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Oct 2025 00:11 |
| FoR Codes: | 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 20 HEALTH > 2005 Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) > 200509 Women's and maternal health @ 50% 20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200499 Public health (excl. specific population health) not elsewhere classified @ 50% |
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