HIV among out-of-school youth in Eastern and Southern Africa: a review

The overall decline of the HIV epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa conceals how the HIV burden has shifted to fall on areas that have been more difficult to reach. This review considers out-of-school youth, a category typically eluding interventions that are school-based. Our review of descriptive studies concentrates on the most affected region, Southern and Eastern Africa, and spans the period between 2000 and 2010. Among the relatively small but increasing number of studies, out-of-school youth was significantly associated with risky sexual behavior (RSB), more precisely with early sexual debut, high levels of partner concurrency, transactional sex, age-mixing, low sexually transmitted infection (STI)/HIV risk perception, a high lifetime number of partners, and inconsistent condom use. Being-in-school not only raises health literacy. The in-school (e.g., age-near) sexual network may also be protective, an effect which the better-studied (and regionally less significant) variable of educational attainment cannot measure. To verify such double effect of being-in-school we need to complement the behavioral research of the past decade with longitudinal cohort analyses that map sexual networks, in various regions

Medición de Confianza Institucional: La evidencia de Guyana

Institutional trust is often measured by several items that are analyzed individually or as sum-scores. However, it is difficult to summarize the results of individual-items analyses, whereas sum-scores may be meaningless if the dimensions that the items are assumed to measure are not verified. Although these limitations are circumvented by using factor analysis, response styles may still bias research results. We use data from Guyana to show that a second-order factor model is appropriate for measuring institutional trust. We also demonstrate that response styles can inflate item and factor convergent validity and may either distort regression effects or create completely spurious ones. We therefore recommend using factor models with corrections for response styles in institutional trust research instead of sum-scores and individual-items analyses.La confianza institucional se mide a menudo por varios elementos que se analizan de forma individual o como puntuaciones de suma. Sin embargo, es difícil resumir los resultados de los análisis de los elementos individuales, mientras que las puntuaciones de suma pueden carecer de sentido si las dimensiones que los elementos apuntan a medir no se verifican. Aunque estas limitaciones son eludidas mediante análisis factoriales, los estilos de respuesta puede todavía sesgar los resultados de la investigación. Hemos utilizado datos de Guyana para mostrar que un modelo de factores de segundo orden es apropiado para la medición de la confianza institucional. También demostramos que los estilos de respuesta pueden inflar la validez de la convergencia entre elemento y factor y pueden distorsionar los efectos de la regresión o crear efectos completamente falsos. Por lo tanto, recomendamos el uso de modelos de factores con correcciones sobre estilos de respuesta en investigaciones sobre confianza institucional en lugar de análisis de puntuaciones de suma y de objetos individuales

Measuring Institutional Trust: Evidence from Guyana

"Institutional trust is often measured by several items that are analyzed individually or as sum-scores. However, it is difficult to summarize the results of individual-items analyses, whereas sum-scores may be meaningless if the dimensions that the items are assumed to measure are not verified. Although these limitations are circumvented by using factor analysis, response styles may still bias research results. We use data from Guyana to show that a second-order factor model is appropriate for measuring institutional trust. We also demonstrate that response styles can inflate item and factor convergent validity and may either distort regression effects or create completely spurious ones. We therefore recommend using factor models with corrections for response styles in institutional trust research instead of sum-scores and individual-items analyses." (author's abstract

Medición de Confianza Institucional: La evidencia de Guyana

Institutional trust is often measured by several items that are analyzed individually or as sum-scores. However, it is difficult to summarize the results of individual-items analyses, whereas sum-scores may be meaningless if the dimensions that the items are assumed to measure are not verified. Although these limitations are circumvented by using factor analysis, response styles may still bias research results. We use data from Guyana to show that a second-order factor model is appropriate for measuring institutional trust. We also demonstrate that response styles can inflate item and factor convergent validity and may either distort regression effects or create completely spurious ones. We therefore recommend using factor models with corrections for response styles in institutional trust research instead of sum-scores and individual-items analyses.La confianza institucional se mide a menudo por varios elementos que se analizan de forma individual o como puntuaciones de suma. Sin embargo, es difícil resumir los resultados de los análisis de los elementos individuales, mientras que las puntuaciones de suma pueden carecer de sentido si las dimensiones que los elementos apuntan a medir no se verifican. Aunque estas limitaciones son eludidas mediante análisis factoriales, los estilos de respuesta puede todavía sesgar los resultados de la investigación. Hemos utilizado datos de Guyana para mostrar que un modelo de factores de segundo orden es apropiado para la medición de la confianza institucional. También demostramos que los estilos de respuesta pueden inflar la validez de la convergencia entre elemento y factor y pueden distorsionar los efectos de la regresión o crear efectos completamente falsos. Por lo tanto, recomendamos el uso de modelos de factores con correcciones sobre estilos de respuesta en investigaciones sobre confianza institucional en lugar de análisis de puntuaciones de suma y de objetos individuales