Effect of Schooling on Age-Disparate Relationships and Number of Sexual Partners Among Young Women in Rural South Africa Enrolled in HPTN 068

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Attending school may have a strong preventative association with sexually transmitted infections among young women, but the mechanism for this relationship is unknown. One hypothesis is that students who attend school practice safer sex with fewer partners, establishing safer sexual networks that make them less exposed to infection. SETTING: We used longitudinal data from a randomized controlled trial of young women aged 13-20 years in the Bushbuckridge district, South Africa, to determine whether the percentage of school days attended, school dropout, and grade repetition are associated with having a partner 5 or more years older (age-disparate) and with the number of sexual partners in the previous 12 months. METHODS: Risks of having an age-disparate relationship and number of sexual partners were compared using inverse probability of exposure weighted Poisson regression models. Generalized estimating equations were used to account for repeated measures. RESULTS: Young women who attended fewer school days (