Background Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) living with HIV in Ghana face multiple intersecting forms of marginalisation. Beyond the clinical management of HIV, little is known about how they construct meaning, navigate identity and imagine their futures within structural contexts shaped by stigma, gender inequity, economic precarity and colonial legacies.
Objective To explore how AGYW living with HIV in Ghana understand and negotiate their social identities in work and school. We then aimed to understand how their lived experiences at school and work are shaped by broader systems of power.
Methods This qualitative study drew on semi-structured interviews with AGYW (ages 11 - 24, n=24) receiving HIV care in Kumasi, Ghana. Data were coded both inductively and deductively.
Themes were interpreted through the Ghanaian context using intersectionality, Critical Disability Studies, spoiled identity theory and African feminist decolonial theory. The analysis was conducted iteratively and reflexively, with attention to positionality, gender and structural power dynamics.
BMJ Open published a clinical update in Research Highlights on 24 Apr 2026.
The item focuses on The world according to girls: a qualitative study of school, work and identity among adolescent girls and young women living with HIV in Ghana.
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