A study of the prevalence and risk factors leading to HIV infection among a sample of street children and youth of Kathmandu

Questions about anlaysis of data

Andrew Baughman   (2012-10-18 18:00)  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

I enjoyed reading this informative report, which will be useful to others researching HIV prevalence among street youth.

I have a few comments about the analysis.

(1) Table 2 - The univariate odds ratio for the association between age and HIV infection was 1.7, but I am not certain how age was coded, either as a continuous variable in years or as a categorical variable (e.g., 11-16 years versus 17-24 years, or some other categories).

(2) Age was determined to be a confounder, and it is stated in the Discussion section that age was an independent risk factor. Given these findings, it would be helpful to see the risk factor results in Table 2 stratified by age and the multivariable model results in Table 1 adjusted for age by including age in the model.

(3) In the Discussion section it is stated that the study did not find a clear correlation between condom use and HIV, yet I could not find this result in the Results section or Table 2.

I believe that addressing these items would strengthen the paper and further our understaning of the data.

Competing interests

None

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