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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Ubaidur Rob, Ph D and Ismat Bhuiya, MSc MPH. Population Council, House # CES (B) 21, Road # 118, Gulshan, Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh, 880 2 882-3334, urob@pcdhaka.org
This article examines the effectiveness of reproductive health education and adolescent-friendly service delivery system in Bangladesh. A quasi-experimental design with two experimental strategies and a control area with pre and post intervention measurements have been used to evaluate the impact of interventions. Over 3000 adolescents of both sexes were interviewed in the baseline and end line surveys. Comparison between pre and post surveys findings suggests a general increase in reproductive health knowledge of school going adolescents with the level of knowledge varying from topic to topic. It is observed that reproductive health education can be imparted in the regular school setting without any major financial involvement. Co-ordination between school management committee, teachers and NGO clinic staff played the most important role in the introduction and successful completion of the course. Reaching out of school adolescents with reductive health messages remains a programmatic challenge and need be examined in broader socio-cultural context. Service statistics suggest that unmarried and out of school female adolescents visited health clinics more frequently than others. Considerable number of unmarried female adolescents (45%) visited clinics for TT immunization. It is interesting to note that only 8% adolescents visited clinics for general health services such as cold, cough, fever and headache. Multivariate analysis suggests that older adolescents who are out of school and employed are more likely to take risky sexual steps compared to others. The logistics regression analysis suggests that age; school enrolment and knowledge of contraceptives and mother’s education have influence on adolescent sexual experiences.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Adolescent Health, Sexual Risk Behavior
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.