Place, gender, and uneven progress in pediatric and adolescent HIV across sub-Saharan Africa: a regional meta-analytic assessment (2000–2024)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background: Marked declines in pediatric HIV have been achieved across sub-Saharan Africa, yet progress among adolescents remains uneven and strongly patterned by place. Drawing on place-based perspectives in health geography, we conceptualize Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) and West and Central Africa (WCA) not merely as epidemiological regions, but as dis-tinct assemblages of health systems, gender norms, and historical investment trajectories shaping HIV risk and care. Using UNICEF-harmonized indica-tors from 2000 to 2024, we examined how place structures progress toward the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 3.3) target. Methods: We pooled country-level estimates using inverse-variance random-effects meta-analysis (restricted maximum likelihood for τ 2 with Hartung–Knapp adjustment). HIV incidence and AIDS-related mortality were analysed on the log scale, and mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) on the logit scale. Outcomes were pooled by region, age group (0–14; 15–19), sex, and year. We quantified percentage change from 2010 to 2024, the achieved annualized rate of change (ARC), and the required ARC from 2024 to 2030 to achieve a 90% reduction from 2010 levels. Robustness was assessed using prespecified sensitivity analyses. Findings: Between 2010 and 2024, child HIV incidence declined by 72% in ESA and 66% in WCA, while adolescent incidence declined by 54% and 62%, respectively. In 2024, MTCT remained above elimination thresholds in both regions (9.9% in ESA; 17.6% in WCA). Adolescent girls experienced substantially higher HIV incidence than boys, with pooled female-to-male incidence rate ratios of 4.13 (95% CI: 3.32–5.13) in ESA and 4.92 (4.04–5.99) in WCA. Despite progress, achieved declines among adolescents (ARC: −5.4%/year in ESA; −6.6%/year in WCA) fall well short of the acceleration required to meet 2030 targets. Conclusion: HIV progress among children and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa is deeply place-dependent. While ESA reflects the benefits of earlier and sustained health system investments, persistent structural and gendered vulnerabilities continue to constrain adolescent outcomes, particularly in WCA. Achieving SDG 3.3 will require place-responsive strategies that integrate gender-sensitive adolescent prevention, differentiated care, and strengthened PMTCT within the specific social, political, and health system contexts shaping risk and access. Highlights HIV declines among children and adolescents show strong place-based patterning. Child HIV incidence declined faster in ESA than in WCA, 2010–2024. Adolescent girls had four- to five-fold higher HIV incidence than boys. MTCT remains above elimination thresholds, especially in West and Central Africa. Meeting 2030 targets requires accelerated, place-responsive strategies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.035 | 0.047 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.040 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".