All: From DREAMS to reality: empowering adolescent girls in Kenya

VACS safeguarding and ethical guidelines

Research on violence against children and youth poses critical ethical challenges, particularly when directly engaging them as research participants. Implementing strong ethical protections that prioritize participant safety, privacy, and confidentiality helps minimize risks like retaliatory violence and ensures participants' well-being.

Adverse childhood experiences, HIV and sexual risk behaviors in five sub-Saharan countries

This study uses VACS data from five sub-Saharan countries to identify associations between exposures to ACEs and sexual risk behaviors and HIV service utilization among young people.

Patterns of adverse childhood experiences and their associations with mental distress, substance use and sexual risk behaviors in Sub-Saharan Africa

Using VACS data, this study assesses how multiple ACEs co-occur and how dominant patterns of co-occurrence are associated with mental distress, substance use, and sexual risk behaviors among young women and men in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Parenting-related positive childhood experiences, adverse childhood experiences, and mental health in four sub-Saharan African countries

Using VACS data, this study assesses the associations between ACEs and negative health outcomes and risk-taking behaviors among young adults and evaluates whether — and which — Positive Childhood Experiences moderate the association between ACEs and these outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.

Approaches for measuring cumulative childhood adversity: A study of youth from 5 sub-Saharan African countries

Using VACS data from Lesotho, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Namibia, and Mozambique, this study assesses approaches to quantifying cumulative childhood adversity (CCA) resulting from four types of Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Service-seeking behaviors among male victims of violence in five African countries: The effects of positive and adverse childhood experiences

Using VACS data, this study analyzes the association between positive and adverse childhood experiences (PCEs and ACEs), and seeking post-violence services among males in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Adverse childhood experiences and associations with mental health, substance use, and violence perpetration among young adults in sub-Saharan Africa

Using VACS data this study estimates the prevalence of six ACE exposures and assesses their association with mental health outcomes, substance use, and violence perpetration among young adults in sub-Saharan Africa.

Parental absence as an adverse childhood experience among young adults in sub-Saharan Africa

Using VACS data, this study assesses whether parental absence in childhood is associated with poor mental health and substance use in young adulthood among youth in sub-Saharan Africa.

Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences in sub-Saharan Africa: A multicountry analysis of the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS)

This study utilises VACS data to estimate the prevalence of ACEs in five low- and middle-income sub-Saharan African countries.

Cross-time comparison of adverse childhood experience patterns among Kenyan youth: Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys, 2010 and 2019

Age at first exposure to violence and later mental health outcomes: A sex-disaggregated, multi-country analysis in sub-Saharan Africa

This study conducts a multi-country, gender-stratified analysis of the relationship between age at first incident of physical violence and outcomes of wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa.

Parental care status and sexual risk behavior in five nationally-representative surveys of sub-Saharan African nations

This study was a secondary analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) from Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Zambia.