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Introduction In the Central African Republic (CAR), HIV/AIDS is the main cause of death in women aged 15–49 years. Increased testing coverage is essential in prevention of HIV/AIDS, especially in areas where conflict hinders access to health care. Socio-economic status (SES) has been shown to be associated with HIV testing uptake. We investigated whether “Provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling” (PITC) could be implemented in a family planning clinic in an active conflict zone in the Central African Republic to reach women of reproductive age and assessed whether socioeconomic status was associated with testing uptake. Methods Women aged 15–49 years were recruited from a free family planning clinic run by Médecins Sans Frontières in the capital Bangui. An asset-based measurement tool was created based on analysis of qualitative in-depth interviews. Measures of socioeconomic status were constructed from the tool, also by using factor analysis. Logistic regression was used to quantify the association between SES and HIV testing uptake (yes/no), while controlling for potential confounders: age, marital status, number of children, education level and head of household. Results A total of 1419 women were recruited during the study period, where 87.7% consented to HIV testing, and 95.5% consented to contraception use. A total of 11.9% had never been tested for HIV previously. Factors negatively associated with HIV testing uptake were: being married (OR = 0.4, 95% CI 0.3–0.5); living in a household headed by the husband as opposed to by another person (OR = 0.4, 95% CI 0.3–0.6), and lower age (OR = 0.96, 95% CI 0.93–0.99). Higher level of education (OR = 1.0, 95% CI 0.97–1.1) and having more children aged under 15 (OR = 0.92, 95% CI 0.81–1.1) was not associated with testing uptake. In multivariable regression, testing uptake was lower in the higher SES groups, but the differences were not significant (OR = 0.80, 95% CI 0.55–1.18). Conclusions The findings show that PITC can be successfully implemented in the patient flow in a family planning clinic, without compromising contraception uptake. Within the PITC framework in a conflict setting, socioeconomic status was not found to be associated with testing uptake in women of reproductive age.

The risk of subsequent fracture is increased after initial fractures; however, proper understanding of its magnitude is lacking. This population-based study examines the subsequent fracture risk in women and men by age and type of initial incident fracture. All incident nonvertebral fractures between 1994 and 2009 were registered in 27,158 participants in the Tromsø Study, Norway. The analysis included 3108 subjects with an initial incident fracture after the age of 49 years. Subsequent fracture (n = 664) risk was expressed as rate ratios (RR) and absolute proportions irrespective of death. The rates of both initial and subsequent fractures increased with age, the latter with the steepest curve. Compared with initial incident fracture rate of 30.8 per 1000 in women and 12.9 per 1000 in men, the overall age-adjusted RR of subsequent fracture was 1.3 (95% CI, 1.2-1.5) in women, and 2.0 (95% CI, 1.6-2.4) in men. Although the RRs decreased with age, the absolute proportions of those with initial fracture who suffered a subsequent fracture increased with age; from 9% to 30% in women and from 10% to 26% in men, between the age groups 50-59 to 80+ years. The type of subsequent fracture varied by age from mostly minor fractures in the youngest to hip or other major fractures in the oldest age groups, irrespective of type and severity of initial fracture. In women and men, 45% and 38% of the subsequent hip or other major fractures, respectively, were preceded by initial minor fractures. The risk of subsequent fracture is high in all age groups. At older age, severe subsequent fracture types follow both clinically severe and minor initial incident fractures. Any fragility fracture in the elderly reflects the need for specific osteoporosis management to reduce further fracture risk. © 2013 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. © 2013 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.