Housing, medical, and food deprivation in poor urban contexts: implications for multiple sexual partnerships and transactional sex in Nairobi's slums

Identifying the factors that lead to sexual risk behavior is crucial in addressing the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Scholars have primarily relied on traditional measures of SES (income, wealth, and education) to predict risk, overlooking measures of deprivation in important social arenas such as housing, medical care, and food expenses. Findings demonstrated that all three deprivation measures, particularly housing and health care, were robust influences of sexual risk even while controlling for traditional SES measures. A multifaceted deprivation framework appears crucial to the development of effective policy interventions to diminish HIV infection.