BMC Public Health 2009, 9:310 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/310 Table 3: Multivariate analysis of HIV infection in young rural women aged 15–24 years All women Sexually active women only Underlying factors With proximate factors Underlying factors With proximate factors Variables Education1 Low Middle High Cluster-level variables Individual-level variables Education2 Low Middle High Current student Not student Student Ever married Single Married Ever had sex No Yes Ever given birth No Yes Number of lifetime sexual partners 0 partner5 1 partner 2 partners ≥ 3 partners a a 1.00 0.49 (0.20–1.21) 0.29 (0.09–0.87) 1.00 0.49 (0.20–1.21) 0.24 (0.09–0.87) 1.00 0.44 (0.18–1.11) 0.29 (0.09–0.90) 1.00 0.41 (0.16–1,06) 0.30 (0.10–0.93) 1.00 1.01 (0.42–2.40) 1.37 (0.43–4.36) 1.00 1.01 (0.42–2.40) 1.37 (0.43–4,36) 1.00 1.00(0.41–2.39) 1.25 (0.39–4.06) 1.00 0.97 (0.40–2.36) 1.35 (0.41–4.40) a 1.00 1.09 (0.36–3.35) 1.00 1.09 (0.36–3,35) 1.00 0.68 (0.23–2.06) 1.00 0.40 (0.13–1.26) a - a - 1.00 6.37 (1.24–32.7) - 1.00 1.05 (0.42–2.63) 1.76 (0.67–4.61) (1) Cluster level education is based on the mean years of educational attainment of the population in the neighbourhoods: rural: low (4.0–5.3), middle (5.4–6.5), high (6.6–9.5) (2) Individual level education categorization is as follows, rural: low (grade 0 – 4), middle (grade 5 – 7) & high (grade 8 and above). (3) CI, confidence interval (4) AOR, age-adjusted odds ratio (5) '0 partner' is equal to the number young women who have not had sexual intercourse a AOR could not be computed because the prevalence for one of the elements was zero. Significant results are in bold (p < 0.05) The correlation between individual and cluster educa- tional attainment was 0.17 in the urban and 0.53 in the rural area. In both urban and rural neighbourhoods, there was no evidence of an interaction between neighbour- hood-level education and individual-level education. After adjusting for underlying individual factors in the multivariate analysis, the likelihood of young urban women in the neighbourhoods with a high average edu- cational attainment to be infected with HIV was still lower than in less educated neighbourhoods, but the association was no longer significant (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.32–1.02). Young women with higher education had a lower risk of HIV infection after controlling for the neighbourhood effect. Among sexually active urban women, neighbour- hood educational level was not significantly associated with HIV infection in the multivariate analyses, whereas high individual-level education maintained its protective effect (Table 2). In the rural clusters the significant association between neighbourhood educational attainment and HIV preva- lence persisted even after adjustments for individual-level Page 7 of 11 (page number not for citation purposes)