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Article History

Received: 20 October 2025

Accepted: 19 March 2026

First Online: 29 March 2026

Declarations

:

: This study is a secondary analysis of anonymized, publicly available data from the Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Surveys for 2008, 2013, and 2019, accessed via the World Health Organization’s Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT, Version 6.0) on July 15, 2025. The original SLDHS data collection was approved by the Sierra Leone Ethics and Scientific Review Committee and the ICF Institutional Review Board. All participants in the original surveys provided informed consent for HIV testing. No individual-level or identifiable data were used in this analysis, and thus, no additional informed consent was required. Data use conformed to WHO’s data use terms.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare no competing interests.