HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022)9:295 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01312-3 . Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), particularly Southern and East Africa, has the highest AIDS deaths and HIV-infected people in the world. Even though considerable effort has been made over the years to study HIV transmission risk behaviours of different population groups in SSA, there is little evidence of studies that have looked at pooled effects of associated HIV risk factors among men, particularly in Southern Africa.