Oral

This session addresses a range of issues related to adolescents in international settings. The first paper describes a case study that evaluated six distinct strategies used to improve sexual and reproductive health of young people in Mexico and throughout the Latin American region. The paper explains how the organizations involved in the interventions were strengthened by the insights that accompanied the process of documenting and evaluating a practice and how the strong evaluation results are being used to improve programs. Another presentation focuses on an evaluation of the Africa Youth Alliance (AYA) partnership in Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda reviews findings from surveys in those three countries, focusing on AYA’s impact on key behavioral outcomes. Another paper examines trends and differentials in the prevalence of premarital sexual intercourse among young women ages 15-24 and further explores the community factors in the overall trends in Kenya, Nigeria, and the Philippines from 1993 to 2003. One panelist describes a peer education intervention in Kenya designed to counter possible negative effects of male circumcision (that it may encourage early sexual debut, rigidify gender roles, and possibly injure the penis). The panelist explains the interventions main components, lessons learned and implications for HIV prevention. Another paper uses longitudinal data (1994, 2002 and 2005) from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey in Cebu, Philippines to investigate the effect on a child of witnessing violence between parents in a low income country and gender differences in intergenerational transmission of violence.

Session Objectives: • Identify individual and community characteristics that contribute to premarital sexual behavior change. • Explain how messages related to health issues can influence adolescent reproductive health and gender role formation. • Assess whether exposure to violence between parents in childhood increases the odds of partner violence perpetration or victimization. • Describe techniques used to evaluate best practices in youth programs. • Evaluate how propensity score matching and instrumental variable analysis can be used to enable impact measurement in a post-test only research design • Articulate how findings from evaluations of youth programs can be used in policy and program decision making and needs for further research.

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing