Sexual and Reproductive Health of Young People: Expanding the Research and Program Agenda

There are many compelling reasons for investing in young people’s health and development. For one, young people aged 10-24 constitute some 1.8 billion and represent 27 percent of the world’s population. Second and more important, behaviors formed and choices made by this large population have lasting implications for individual and public health, will determine the health of this generation as adults as well as the health and futures of the nations to which they belong. Third, although cohorts of young people are healthier, more urbanized and better educated than earlier generations, they face significant risks related to sexual and reproductive health, and many lack the knowledge and power to make informed sexual and reproductive choices. Fourth, programs thus far that address young people’s sexual and reproductive health needs have had varied success. Many have overlooked the fact that young people are not a homogeneous group, and the ways in which they experience vulnerabilities and the extent to which interventions designed to ameliorate them are successful vary enormously by such factors as age, sex, marital status, class, schooling, work status, family structure, poverty levels, rural-urban residence and cultural context. Moreover, and further confounding the situation, is the lack of evidence-based precedent about effective interventions.