Introduction
The purpose of this analysis was to identify social, behavioral and cultural factors associated
with HIV infection among the Luo people residing on the southern part of Kenya and Somali in
the Eastern part of Kenya. Previous studies have linked higher prevalence of HIV in the Luo
community to cultural practice such as widow inheritance, and lack of circumcision among men.
Analysis was conducted to determine the difference cultural and behavior practice between the
Luo and Somali using Kenya demographic health survey (DHS) data, collected between 2008
and 2009, and used statistical computing Software program(SAS) for analysis.
Results
There were 6906 participants in this survey, 3023 were males and 3811 females. The minimum
age was 15 and the maximum age was 54. About 73% of the Luo were Christian and 25% were
Catholic, compared to the Somali who were 99% Muslim. 98% of Somali were circumcised and
99% of the Luo were not circumcised. About 60% of the Luo used condoms compared to the
25% of Somali. Multivariate analysis comparing Luo and Somali showed the Luo were at high
risk of getting HIV infection compared to Somali adjusted odds ratio (OR= 13.34;95% Cl 2.19 –
81.11).
Conclusion
Different risk factors were contributing to higher prevalence of HIV among the Luo community.
This study was an observation study, hence the cultural and behavior difference observed cannot
be used to established causality due to study design limitation. This study finding can be used to
develop future study examining the cultural and behavioral risk factors associated with HIV
transmission in Africa.