A family planning program in indigenous pre-teen children living in San Quintin, BC Mexico: The BIXBY Family Planning Project

Mexico's indigenous populations remain underserved despite recent large-scale implementations of health programs by Mexican government agencies. As part of the VIIDAI program, the BIXBY project is a family planning program whose purpose is to reduce risk of teenage pregnancy and delay onset of sexual activity among indigenous Mexican pre-teens living in San Quintin, BC Mexico. Large family size, early sexual debut, and underuse of effective contraceptive methods contribute to sustaining poor living and health conditions among indigenous populations. Community needs assessments revealed that teachers and opinion leaders viewed family planning and sexual health education in pre-teens as a priority. Interviews in 160 indigenous adult women revealed that women had an average of 4.6 children, 60% were married by age 17 and 24% never used birth control. A follow-up study evaluated the feasibility of training primary-school students to serve as peer sexual-health-educators (promotoras/es). The goal of the project is to increase basic sexual health knowledge and to change attitudes and beliefs regarding sexual activity, family size and use of birth control. Preliminary evaluations revealed that student promotoras/es increased their knowledge of sexual health after receiving training. A three month intervention is currently underway in which four 5th/6th grade student promotora/es are educating their peers. This innovative pilot intervention will provide unique information about the effectiveness of peer health education to change attitudes and beliefs of pre-teen indigenous children. Results of these efforts can serve to inform the development and implementation of novel programs to improve the well-being of Mexico's indigenous people.