Young people and risk-taking in sexual relations

This study in the UNAIDS publication Sex and youth: contextual factors affecting risk for HIV/AIDS presents a comparative analysis of data collected in interviews and discussions with nearly 3000 young people in 7 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. The authors argue that health promotion successes in HIV prevention share certain common characteristics; in particular, the notion of community inclusion in processes of intervention development and deployment. A key message therefore is that young people themselves must be included in the development of health promotion programmes if prevention approaches are to be relevant.

The study aims to promote a more sophisticated understanding of sexuality and social relationships, which contextualises sexual practices and relations with their meanings and intentions, their origins and foundations, and includes their capacity to transform culture. It argues that this kind of understanding of young people’s sexual conduct is more immediately useful, more easily apprehended, and more directly translatable into programmatic responses than standard discourses of young people’s vulnerability, descriptive statistics of sexual practices, and social epidemiological modelling of risk-taking. [adapted from author].