HIV and AIDS still pose a major public health problem to most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia included. The objective of
the paper is to determine changes in selected sexual behaviour and practice and HIV prevalence indicators between 2001–2002 and
2007. We used the Demographic and Health Survey Indicators Database for the computation of the selected indicators. We further
used STATA 10.0 to compute significance tests to test for statistical difference in the indicators. The results indicate some changes in
sexual behaviour, as indicated by an increase in abstinence, use of condoms and the decrease in multiple partnerships. The overall
percentage of abstinence among never-married young men and women aged 15–24 years in Zambia increased significantly by
15.2% (p ¼ .000) and 5.9% (p ¼ .001) respectively, between 2001–2002 and 2007. A statistically significant increase of 6.6%
(p ¼ .029) was observed in the percentage of young women who reported having used a condom during the last time they had
had premarital sex. A statistically significant decrease of 11.0% (p ¼ .000) and 1.4% (p ¼ .000) was observed among young men
and women, respectively, who reported having multiple partners in the preceding 12 months. The factorial decomposition using
multivariate analysis reveals that the indicators which contributed to the statistically significant 2.6% decline in HIV prevalence
among young women aged 15–24 years in Zambia include proportion reporting condom use during premarital sex (+6.6%),
abstinence (+5.9%), sex before age 15 (24.5%), premarital sex (22.6%), sex before age 18 (22.4%) and proportion reporting
multiple partnerships (21.4%). Remarkable strides have been achieved towards promoting responsible sexual behaviour and
practice among young people in Zambia. Further research focusing on factors that predispose young women in Zambia to
higher risk of infection from HIV is required. The results from this paper should be useful in the design of programmes to
control the spread of HIV and AIDS, particularly among young people in Zambia and other sub-Saharan countries.