Sexuality and reproductive health

The paper seeks to understand the sexual and reproductive health behaviour of adolescents within the context of urban slum living. Data was obtained from adolescents’ living in Kwesimintsim an urban slum area in Ghana. The study targeted adolescents 905 adolescents’ aged 10-19 years. A multi-staged sampling technique was used to select the individuals needed for the study. The adolescents perception of the general conditions in the area were mixed; while some of the respondents described the conditions in a positive light, others depicted the area negatively. A few indicated that they had ever engaged in any of such activities. The factors that predicted adolescents risk perception towards sexual and reproductive health included: age, ethnicity, membership of social groups, and engagement in economic activities. Adolescents who engaged in economic activities were more likely to perceive themselves at risk of pregnancy/impregnating someone. There is the need to project the positives of the slums to help in the development of the future population since these environments can enhance as well as inhibit adolescents’ reproductive health behaviour in a number of ways.

The international community agrees that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be achieved without ensuring universal access to SRH services and HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.
The study reviews published papers on Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) that are based on Demographic and Health surveillance System (HDSS) platform in attempt to underscore the contributions of the INDEPTH Network platform to research effort and interventions on reproductive health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A list of search terms was generated by combining terms related to Demographic and Health surveillance (HIV, fertility etc). A call was sent out to INDEPTH centers requesting for their published SRH papers which used the HDSSs platform.
Findings reveals that school attendance considerably delays entry into motherhood. The studies on maternal health revealed that there has been a decline maternal death over the years, that is partly able to better access to emergency obstetric services, improved education of women and also reduction in fertility.
In conclusion, SRH is a significant public health need in all communities. However, we argue that HDSSs have a huge potential to become the key data source for monitoring the MDGs, particularly in the family planning, marriage and fertility studies.

This paper attempts to understand the socio-demographic, economic and spatial factors associated with alcohol use before casual sex in Ghana. It draws on data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS-08). The analysis in this paper is based 993 men who reported alcohol use before their last casual sexual intercourse prior to the survey. The initial analysis involved using proportions to describe the sample and background characteristics associated with alcohol use before casual sex. In order to examine the nature and strength of association between the explanatory variables and the outcome variable, it was necessary to control for the confounding effects of other correlates using multivariate analyses. Three Binary logistic regression models were used, since the dependent variable (alcohol use before casual sex) was constructed to be a binary outcome. These were run separately and the odds of alcohol use before casual sex are indicated in the form of percentages. Alcohol use before casual sex appeared to increase with age and at the same time occurred more among respondents older than 34 years. Alcohol use before casual sex was more common among participants who were employed (15%), as well as those in the poorest

Obstetric fistula is a demoralizing pregnancy related disability mostly observed in the developing countries. District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-III) states that India is such a country where the prevalence of fistula is 1.5 percent. Much of the studies done on fistula are clinical based studies. Literature on the socio-economic and demographic factors associated with fistula in Indian context is scanty. Current study is an attempt to identify the prevalence and discrepancy of obstetric fistula among Indian women. This study uses data from the DLHS-III, 2007-08. Bi-variate and multivariate analysis will be employed in the study. The preliminary findings reveal that the woman with a disadvantaged socio-economic background is most likely to be adversely affected by the incidence of fistula.
(Key Words: Obstetric Fistula, public health, India)

India accounts for 23 % of the global burden of maternal deaths. According to biomedical causes, more than 70 percent of these deaths are from direct obstetric complications. However, there exists ambiguity and variability in existing literature on magnitude of socio-economic inequality in obstetric morbidity prevalence which makes it difficult to set priorities in health policy. This study aims to assess how far self-reporting obstetric morbidity misleads in measuring socio-economic inequality in India and whether using sophisticated inequality measures such as regression based inequality decomposition will help to overcome the problem. The study has used data from NFHS-3 and employed regression based decomposition analysis. Bivariate results reveal that self-reporting obstetric morbidity from NFHS-3 data is misleading in measurement of socio-economic differentials; however decomposition analysis shows that the prevalence of obstetric complications is greater among disadvantaged groups with a negative contribution of education. Thus we can overcome the problem of measuring socio-economic inequality to some extent. But, a logical explanation of the results inferred for health policy interventions is vital, as decomposition analysis has also failed to overcome the problem of self-reporting morbidities by illiterate women.

Adolescent sexuality refers to sexual feelings, behaviour and development in adolescents and is a stage of human sexuality. Sexuality is often a vital phase of teenagers' lives. The sexual behaviour of youth is, in most cases, influenced by their culture's norms and morals, their sexual orientation. Research Objective of this study is; to study the associations between substance use and risky sexual behaviour among youth. To examining the diffentials in prevalence and determinants of risky sexual behaviour such as age at first sex, condom use, and non-consensual sexual experiences among youth. To study the linkages between risky sexual behaviour and their mental and sexual health problems among youth. The project Youth in India: Situation and Needs 2006–2007 is the first nationally representative study conducted to identify key transitions experienced by married and unmarried youth in India. A total of 174,037 households were enumerated and a total of 50,848 young people were successfully interviewed from these households (8,052 married young men, 11,522 unmarried young men, 13912 married women and 17,362 unmarried young women). Regression analysis revealed gender differences between risky sexual behaviour and their health. We also found that the linkages between economic activity, schooling status and risky sexual behaviour amo

In India, there is pressing need to conduct research focusing on youth especially in the rural areas since many girls and boys never enrolled or dropout and not exposed to systematic instructions in reproductive and sexual matters. Hence, the need for providing youth reproductive and sex health issues cannot be ignored, particularly in the context of early marriages, pregnancies prevalent in the community, pre marital sex, unsafe sex and looming threat of STD’s especially HIV/AIDS. The aim of the study was to assess the influence of background characteristics on the knowledge, attitudes and practices on reproductive and sexual health issue among out of school rural youth. The sample size of the study was 450 out of school youth in the age group of 15-24 years in three deferentially developed regions living in rural areas.
To assess the youth’s knowledge, five indices were constructed on the aspects of 1) Changes during adolescence 2) Female reproductive system 3) Family planning 4) STD and HIV/AIDS and 5) Sexual matters. Similarly, all the same above indices except the index on changes during adolescence with regard to attitudes were constructed. Also, a separate index was developed on reproductive and sexual practices of youth. ANOVA test was applied to assess the influence of background characteristics of rural youth on.

Background: The risky sexual behaviours and other behaviours such as drug use among street youth are of major public health and social health concern, but there is paucity of current information on these behaviors and the sexual health needs of these young people.
Method: The study was a descriptive cross sectional study carried out among male and female youth in selected Motor parks and Markets in Ibadan. The data was collected using a qualitative method of data collection.
Results: The Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) conducted among 160 discussants revealed that the respondents perceived that they were at risk of contracting STI including HIV because of their sexual activities. Condom use was recognized as a mode of preventing STI but many were unwilling to use them because of perceived reduction in sexual satisfaction. The discussants were aware of gonorrhea and HIV as common STI and the major treatment modes for STI were traditional remedies and drugs obtained from patent medicine shops. Traditional remedies were preferred by most and considered to be more effective.
Conclusion: Majority of these young people on the streets were sexually active and many engage in high risk sexual behaviours. Appropriate sexual health interventions are recommended.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the poor reproductive health system performance in Sudan as well as understand better the barriers of utilization of perinatal health services. Data used in the analysis come from two national representative surveys, Sudan Household health Survey in 2006 and 2010 and health facility survey 2008. Samples of 6173 and 6065 married women in reproductive age in 2006 and 2010 respectively and 4745 health facility are used in the analysis. Furthermore, primary qualitative comes from 8 FGDs discussion with women and village midwifes, 31 in-depth interviews with decision makers and stakeholders, health providers in 2012 used in the study.
A conceptual framework was developed to examine the impact of women’s characteristics and health system elements on material health using both qualitative and quantitative indicators. The indicators are on the individual, household, and community levels. Findings demonstrate that certain factors related to cultural and women’s status aspects as well as factors related to health system in Sudan are the most significant factors that constitute challenges in the utilization of perinatal health service among women thus affect maternal health. Some policy implications and suggestions to reform reproductive health system under limited resources are discussed.

The paper attempts to examine the failure and abandonment by different spacing methods of family planning and to know the reasons behind contraceptive failure and abandonment by method. We tested the hypothesis-Women from poor economic status tend to have higher relative risk for abandonment and Women having health related reasons more likely to discontinue family planning method. The data for the present study is taken from the third round of(NFHS-3)conducted during 2005-06.Cox-regression model has been used to analyze calendar data. The study shows that mainly fertility and health related reasons were the reasons behind discontinue for the last method. Method related reason was also having its significance in abandonment of the last method in all the selected states. Pearl pregnancy index was generally lower for five years exposure period as compare to three years exposure. In all the cases, those women who had desire for additional child have higher relative risk to discontinue the method.