Promoting equity in adolescent health in Latin America: designing a comprehensive Sex education program using...

Area of Science:

• Adolescent Health
• Public Health
• Gender Studies

Background:

• Sex education is vital for adolescent well-being, but many programs lack a gender perspective, leading to inequitable outcomes.
• Comprehensive sex education, integrating a gender lens, is crucial for adolescent health equity, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
• Existing interventions often adopt a heteronormative and biologically-focused approach, failing to address diverse adolescent needs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a comprehensive and gender-transformative sex education program for adolescents in a Latin American middle-income country.
• To address the limitations of current sex education by incorporating a multidimensional view of sexuality and a strong gender perspective.
• To utilize the Intervention Mapping Approach for evidence-based program design.

Main Methods:

• An exploratory sequential mixed-method study involving literature review, focus groups with students, and interviews with school professionals.
• Program design informed by student and professional input, followed by expert judgment validation.
• Preliminary evaluation through a pre-post survey with 30 high school students in two public schools.

Main Results:

• A comprehensive and gender-transformative sex education program was successfully designed.
• A statistically significant increase in protective skills in sexuality was observed among participants post-intervention (W=59, p=.01).
• The Intervention Mapping Approach facilitated the integration of evidence and community needs.

Conclusions:

• The developed sex education program has the potential to enhance adolescents' protective sexual skills.
• The program promotes health equity by fostering gender-equitable outcomes in adolescent sex education.
• Intervention Mapping is an effective framework for creating culturally relevant and impactful health interventions.