1. Regional and Country Prevalence Estimates of Unsafe Sex Among Adolescents in 68 Low-Income and Middle-Income Countries.
- Author
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Leung, Janni, Lim, Carmen, Belete, Habte, Mcclure-Thomas, Caitlin, Foo, Shaun, and Chan, Gary Chung Kai
- Subjects
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UNSAFE sex , *TEENAGERS' sexual behavior , *SEXUAL intercourse , *HUMAN sexuality , *PUBLIC health , *MIDDLE-income countries , *LOW-income countries - Abstract
Prioritizing adolescent health is a public health priority to achieve the sustainable development goals, including reducing the risk of unsafe sex. Data on unsafe sex have remained scarce among adolescents in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). To estimate the prevalence of unsafe sex in LMICs, we conducted secondary data analysis on the Global School-based Student Health Surveys among 244,863 students aged 13–17 years from 68 countries across five World Health Organization regions. The overall prevalence of ever had sex was 16.2%. The highest to lowest regional prevalence estimation of ever had sex was 30.5% (28.9–32.1) in the Americas, 28.6% (26.8–30.4) in Africa, 10.9% (9.2–12.6) in the Eastern Mediterranean, 9.6% (8.8–10.5) in South-East Asia, and 8.0% (6.8–9.1) in the Western Pacific. The highest prevalence of sexual intercourse before age 14 and practicing sexual intercourse without condom use were 36.5% (34.5–38.5) and 32.2% (30.1–34.3) in Africa, respectively. Findings suggest that current interventions are inadequate in promoting the uptake of safe sexual behaviors and an urgent intervention is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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