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Leung J, Lim C, Belete H, Mcclure-Thomas C, Foo S, Chan GCK. Regional and Country Prevalence Estimates of Unsafe Sex Among Adolescents in 68 Low-Income and Middle-Income Countries. Arch Sex Behav 2024:10.1007/s10508-024-02861-1. [PMID: 38637452 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-024-02861-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2023] [Revised: 03/24/2024] [Accepted: 03/25/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024]
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janni Leung
- Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, 31 Upland Road, St. Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia
| | - Carmen Lim
- Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, 31 Upland Road, St. Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia
| | - Habte Belete
- Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, 31 Upland Road, St. Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia.
- Department of Psychiatry, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.
| | - Caitlin Mcclure-Thomas
- Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, 31 Upland Road, St. Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia
| | - Shaun Foo
- Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, 31 Upland Road, St. Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia
| | - Gary Chung Kai Chan
- Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, 31 Upland Road, St. Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia
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