Interagency Youth Working Group
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For hard copies of the program resources, please use the contact information supplied with each item.
1. Adolescent Sexual Health in West Africa: Rights, Realities, Responses
2. Entre Nous magazine
3. Evidence and Rights-based Planning and Support Tool for SRHR/HIV Prevention Interventions for Young People
4. Exchange on HIV/AIDS, Sexuality and Gender
5. Going All-out for Human Rights and Sexual Health—Aiming for Results in Burkina Faso
6. Integrating Youth Reproductive Health and Family Planning into HIV/AIDS Education
7. Operational Plan for UNAIDS Action Framework: Addressing Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV
8. Overcoming Poverty and Abuse: Protecting Girls in Domestic Service in Haiti
9. Promoting Quality Education for Orphans and Vulnerable Children
10. Rapid Advice: Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV Infection in Adults and Adolescents
11. The Scrutinize Campaign: A Youth HIV Prevention Campaign Addressing Multiple and Concurrent Sexual Partnerships
12. Seen and Heard: Children Affected by HIV and AIDS
13. Teenage Tata—Voices of Young Fathers in South Africa
14. Together We Must…End Violence against Women and Girls and HIV and AIDS
1. Acceptance of human papillomavirus vaccination among first year female university students in Hong Kong
2. Attitudes and beliefs about HIV/AIDS behaviour and education among Tanzanian youth
3. Children caring for their "caregivers": exploring the caring arrangements in households affected by AIDS in Western Kenya
4. The impact of the African Youth Alliance Program on the sexual behavior of young people in Uganda
5. Increasing parent involvement in youth HIV prevention: a randomized Caribbean study
6. Prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis infection among young reproductive age women in India: implications for treatment and prevention
7. Using multiple sampling approaches to measure sexual risk-taking among young people in Haiti: programmatic implications
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1. Adolescent Sexual Health in West Africa: Rights, Realities, Responses 
(2009, 44 pages, 2.6 MB)
This report states that despite massive donor investments to combat HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, adolescents are often neglected in social development initiatives and national health policies and programs. This lack of focus on youth contributes to increasing young people's sexual health risks and making them more vulnerable to HIV. A summary of the report is also available in French (10 pages, 472 KB).
Organization: Plan International
Contact: waro.ro@plan-international.org
2. Entre Nous magazine (2009, 32 pages, 1.6 MB)
This special issue, entitled "Young and Healthy?," discusses various aspects of youth sexual and reproductive health in Estonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Tajikistan.
Organization: WHO, NHS Scotland, IPPF
Contact: entrenous@euro.who.int
3. Evidence and Rights-based Planning and Support Tool for SRHR/HIV Prevention Interventions for Young People (2009, 72 pages, 927 KB)
Many organizations want to improve young people's quality of life and health but do not know how to develop effective programs. Experience and evidence gained from work done all over the world show what elements contribute to quality. This tool provides the most important evidence and provides a plan for organizations on how to best design and evaluate education programs on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for young people.
Organization: Stop AIDS Now, World Population Foundation
Contact: http://www.stopaidsnow.org/contact/contact
4. Exchange on HIV/AIDS, Sexuality and Gender (2009, 16 pages, 5.3 MB)
The focus of this special issue is multiple and concurrent partners (MCPs) and the spread of HIV. The articles discuss how the prevalence of MCPs is affecting the health of young people in Malawi, India, and South Africa and what sorts of programs are trying to reduce the incidence of MCPs among youth.
Organization: Royal Tropical Institute
Contact: exchange@kit.nl
5. Going All-out for Human Rights and Sexual Health—Aiming for Results in Burkina Faso (2009, 40 pages, 1 MB)
This publication describes the PROSAD project in Burkina Faso. The program has three components. The first focuses on youth and their need for information and services in family planning; sexual and reproductive health; and HIV prevention, care, and treatment. The second focuses on the rights of women and girls and where they can turn if their rights are violated. Special attention is paid to stopping female genital mutilation and to enrolling and retaining girls in school. The third component focuses on children and their need for protection from child trafficking and child labor.
Organization: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH
Contact: aidsprg@gtz.de
6. Integrating Youth Reproductive Health and Family Planning into HIV/AIDS Education (2009, 4 pages, 475 KB)
This brief presents the International Youth Foundation's (IYF) experiences and lessons learned in Tanzania. There, IYF's Planning for Life program integrated youth reproductive health education and family planning services into its HIV/AIDS prevention activities and trained local youth service providers to offer youth-friendly reproductive health services.
Organization: International Youth Foundation
Contact: caroline@iyfnet.org
7. Operational Plan for UNAIDS Action Framework: Addressing Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV (2009, 33 pages, 801 KB)
This framework was developed to help address persistent gender inequality and human rights violations. These violations put women and girls at greater risk of HIV and threaten the gains that have been made in preventing HIV transmission and increasing access to antiretroviral treatment.
Organization: UNAIDS
Contact: distribution@unaids.org
8. Overcoming Poverty and Abuse: Protecting Girls in Domestic Service in Haiti (2009, 4 pages, 152 KB)
Sexual violence against women and girls is pervasive and widespread in Haiti. An estimated 100,000 girls between the ages of 6 and 17 were working as domestic servants in 2007. These children are at particular risk of physical abuse and sexual violence. In this document, Amnesty International calls on the Haitian authorities to provide adequate protection against physical and sexual violence, particularly for girls in domestic service and living on the streets.
Organization: Amnesty International
Contact: http://www.amnesty.org/en/contact
9. Promoting Quality Education for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (2009, 149 pages, 3.2 MB)
This report documents 12 case studies in Kenya, Rwanda, Swaziland, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia that represent a wide range of approaches to address the educational rights and needs of orphans and vulnerable children. As the HIV and AIDS epidemic becomes increasingly complex, and as the personal and social consequences rise, the ways in which societies respond to ensure children's right to quality education must become more integrated, nuanced, and dynamic.
Organization: UNICEF
Contact: pubdoc@unicef.org
10. Rapid Advice: Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV Infection in Adults and Adolescents (2009, 28 pages, 487 KB)
Based on the latest scientific evidence, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released new recommendations on HIV treatment and prevention and infant feeding in the context of HIV. WHO now recommends earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy for adults and adolescents, the delivery of more patient-friendly antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), and prolonged use of ARVs to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. For the first time, WHO recommends that HIV-positive mothers or their infants take ARVs while breastfeeding to prevent HIV transmission.
Organization: WHO
Contact: bookorders@who.int
11. The Scrutinize Campaign: A Youth HIV Prevention Campaign Addressing Multiple and Concurrent Sexual Partnerships (2009, 12 pages, 403 KB)
Victor Scrutinize was the animated star of the Scrutinize Campaign, a year-long series of HIV prevention ads launched on South African television in June 2008. Irreverent and humorous, with strong, colorful visuals, the campaign's ads were markedly different from previous South African HIV prevention campaigns for youth. Rather than telling the audience what to do, the Scrutinize Campaign's messaging encouraged those in the audience to scrutinize their own behavior and resulted in dramatic uptake of key HIV prevention messages. This case study describes the program, its development and implementation, evaluation, lessons learned, and recommendations for future programming.
Organization: Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa
Contact: info@scrutinize.org.za
12. Seen and Heard: Children Affected by HIV and AIDS (2008, 28 pages, 1.1 MB)
This publication describes "Seen and Heard: Children Affected by HIV and AIDS," a project to increase understanding and awareness of the issues facing children affected by HIV and ensure that their concerns receive the high-profile attention they deserve.
Organization: Health and Development Networks
Contact: publications@hdnet.org
13. Teenage Tata—Voices of Young Fathers in South Africa (2009, 136 pages, 2.8 MB)
This report provides an in-depth portrait of impoverished young South African men who became fathers while teenagers. After studying what being a father means to these young men, the authors discuss young fathers' strong sense of responsibility; accounts of emotional engagement with their children and the women in their lives; the motivating power of young fathers' own absent fathers on their parenting intentions; their desire for sex- and relationship-education from male family members; and their clear recognition of the help they need.
Organization: Save the Children Sweden and HSRC
Contact: http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/pages.php?pageid=3
14. Together We Must…End Violence against Women and Girls and HIV and AIDS (2009, 36 pages, 1.5 MB)
This report draws attention to the knowledge, institutional capacity, and resources needed to comprehensively address the intersection between HIV and AIDS and violence against women and girls. Its aim is to stimulate debate and collaboration among practitioners and advocates about how to identify and promote effective prevention policies and practices that can be adapted to various contexts.
Organization: UNIFEM, Action Aid
Contact: http://www.unifem.org/about/contact_general.php
1. Acceptance of human papillomavirus vaccination among first year female university students in Hong Kong. Wong WC, Fong B, Chan PK. Sex Health 2009;6(4):264–71.
This study assessed sexual behavior, knowledge, and attitudes among first-year university students in order to identify factors that might affect their acceptance of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. A cross-sectional survey was conducted at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in August 2006. The survey was a self-administered questionnaire comprising questions regarding general health, sexual behavior, knowledge about HPV and cervical cancer, and attitudes toward vaccination. Of 992 students, 63 (6.5%) reported having had sexual intercourse—22.4% of whom had had more than one sexual partner—and 36.5% had had unprotected sexual intercourse. A total of 70.8% of participants were willing to accept the HPV vaccine, with "willingness"' independently associated with age, having had sexual intercourse, and beliefs regarding the effectiveness of vaccination (P < 0.05). Understanding the role of these influences can aid in the design of successful HPV education, prevention, and vaccination programs.
2. Attitudes and beliefs about HIV/AIDS behaviour and education among Tanzanian youth. Maswanya E, Brown G, Merriman G. Sex Health 2009;6(4):293–9.
Twenty Tanzanian college students of both sexes were interviewed in this qualitative study. Health Belief Model and Social Cognitive Theory guided the interview, and constant comparative analysis was used to measure students' attitudes, beliefs, behavior, and education related to HIV infection risks. During the interview, the following topics emerged: misinformation and desire for HIV/AIDS education programs in school curricula; perceptions of one's own and peers' susceptibility to HIV infection; social norms regarding sexual behavior and perceptions about access to education and health services. Lack of accurate information and lack of education at home and at school further contributed to risk behavior. Based on the findings, the authors offer recommendations for improving prevention programs among college students in Tanzanian schools.
3. Children caring for their "caregivers": exploring the caring arrangements in households affected by AIDS in Western Kenya. Skovdal M. AIDS Care 2010;22(1):96–103.
Many researchers describe orphans as an emotional and financial cost to the households in which they live. This has created a representation of orphans as a burden, not only to their fostering household, but also to society. This article challenges this representation by exploring children's contributions to their fostering households. Drawing on research from Bondo District in Kenya, the author compiled the views of 36 guardians and 69 orphaned children between the ages of 11 and 17, who articulated their circumstances through photography and drawing. Nearly 300 photos and drawings were selected by the children and subsequently described in writing. The author conducted an additional 44 in-depth interviews and three focus group discussions to explore findings further. The data suggest that many fostering households benefit tremendously from absorbing orphaned children. All orphans were found to contribute to their fostering household's income and provide valuable care or support to ageing, ailing, or young members of their households. The article concludes that caution should be exercised in using the term "caregiver" to describe foster parents due to the reciprocity, and indeed at times a reversal, of caring responsibilities.
4. The impact of the African Youth Alliance Program on the sexual behavior of young people in Uganda. Karim AM, Williams T, Patykewich L, et al. Stud Fam Plann 2009;40(4):289–306.
This study evaluated the impact of the African Youth Alliance (AYA) program on the sexual behavior of young people aged 17–22 in Uganda. Between 2000 and 2005, the multicomponent AYA program implemented behavior-change communication and youth-friendly clinical services, and it coordinated policy and advocacy. The program provided institutional capacity building and established mechanisms for coordination among agencies that implemented programs for young people. The analysis of findings from both a self-reported exposure design and a static group comparison design indicated that AYA had a positive impact on sexual behavior among young females but not among young males. AYA-exposed girls were at least 13% more likely to report having used a condom at last sex, at least 10% more likely to report that they had consistently used condoms with their current partner, at least 10% more likely to have used contraceptives at last sex, and 13% more likely to have had fewer sex partners during the past 12 months, compared with girls who were not exposed to the AYA program. Scaling up the AYA program in Uganda could, therefore, be expected to improve significantly the sexual and reproductive health of young women. Effective strategies for promoting safer sexual behaviors among boys and young men must be identified, however.
5. Increasing parent involvement in youth HIV prevention: a randomized Caribbean study. Baptiste DR, Kapungu C, Miller S, et al. AIDS Educ Prev 2009;21(6):495–511.
This article presents preliminary findings of a randomized HIV prevention study in Trinidad and Tobago. The study centers on an HIV workshop aimed at strengthening parenting skills that are empirically linked to reducing adolescent HIV exposure and other sexual risks. These skills include parental monitoring; educating youth about HIV, sex, and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs); and discussing cultural and interpersonal pressures to have sex. Participants included 180 primary caregivers and their 12- to 14-year-old adolescents randomized to either the Trinidad and Tobago family HIV workshop (N = 92) or a general workshop (N = 88). Intervention and control group participants completed pretest and posttest measures on parenting and HIV risk outcomes. Compared to controls, intervention parents reported improvements in HIV knowledge, attitudes about AIDS, general communication with adolescents, conversations with adolescents about sex, conversations about sexual risks and values, monitoring of adolescents, conflicts with adolescents, and intensity of daily parenting hassles. Intervention and control parents did not differ in behavioral control, use of positive parenting techniques, or expansion of support networks.
6. Prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis infection among young reproductive age women in India: implications for treatment and prevention. Madhivanan P, Bartman MT, Pasutti L, et al. Sex Health 2009;6(4):339–44.
Trichomonas vaginalis infection is the most common curable sexually transmissible infection (STI) worldwide. This study describes the burden and correlates of T. vaginalis infection among young reproductive age women in Mysore, India. Between November 2005 and March 2006, sexually active women aged 15–30 years were recruited from low-income peri-urban and rural neighborhoods of Mysore, India. Participants were interviewed and offered a physical examination and testing for T. vaginalis, bacterial vaginosis, vaginal candidiasis, Neisseria gonorrheoea, and herpes simplex virus type-2 antibodies. Of the 898 participating women, 76 had a T. vaginalis infection. Nearly all (98%) participants were married, and most reported their spouse as their main sex partner. The mean age at marriage was 16.9 years, and two-thirds of the sample reported having first sexual intercourse before the age of 19 years. Risk factors independently associated with T. vaginalis infection included early age at first intercourse, concurrent bacterial vaginosis, vaginal candidiasis, and herpes simplex virus type-2 infection. At 8.5%, the burden of T. vaginalis infection among a community sample of young reproductive-aged women is relatively high. Because this infection increases the risk of HIV transmission and is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, there is a need for increased screening and treatment of this easily curable sexually transmissible infection in India.
7. Using multiple sampling approaches to measure sexual risk-taking among young people in Haiti: programmatic implications. Speizer IS, Beauvais H, Gomez AM, et al. Stud Fam Plann 2009;40(4):277–88.
This study compares three surveys of young people aged 15–24 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in terms of their sociodemographic characteristics and sexual behaviors and the surveys' usefulness for identifying young people at high risk and for program planning. The surveys consist of responses from a representative sample of young people in the 2005–06 Haiti Demographic and Health Survey (HDHS), a 2004 facility-based study, and a 2006–07 venue-based study that used the Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) method. The facility-based and PLACE studies included larger proportions of single, sexually experienced young people and people who knew someone with HIV/AIDS than did the HDHS. More respondents in the PLACE sample had multiple sex partners in the past year and received money or gifts in return for sex, compared with respondents in the facility study. At first and last sex, more PLACE respondents used contraceptives, including condoms. Experience of pregnancy was most commonly reported in the data from the facility-based sample; however, more ever-pregnant PLACE respondents than others reported ever having terminated a pregnancy. Program managers seeking to implement prevention activities should consider using facility- or venue-based methods to identify and understand the behaviors of young people at high risk.
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