BACKGROUND Gender roles influence men's attitudes towards reproductive health, and society might assume that reproductive health issues, fertility and family planning are women's responsibilities. Moreover, literature shows that men have insufficient knowledge about reproductive health matters and some misconceptions about modern contraceptive practices. OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to...

This In Brief, written by Heather D. Boonstra, summarizes key findings of a multiyear, multi-country study on the scope of young people's sexual and reproductive health needs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Guttmacher staff worked with 10 organizations (nine based in Africa) to gather evidence in four Sub-Saharan African countries--Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda--where national surveys of 12-19-...

Whether well founded or not, perceptions of one's own HIV risk have been shown by health behavior models to be an important factor in determining individuals' sexual behavior. Although empirical studies on the determinants of HIV risk perception exist, only a few have focused on adolescents who are not yet sexually active. Using data from nationally-representative surveys of adolescents, we ass...

The impact of HIV on maternal mortality and more broadly on the health of women, remains poorly documented and understood. Two recent reports attempt to address the conceptual and methodological challenges that arise in estimating HIV-related maternal mortality and trends. This paper presents and compares the methods and discusses how they affect estimates at global and regional levels. Country...

A Fakoya, H Lamba, N Mackie, R Nandwani, A Brown, EJ Bernard, C Gilling-Smith, C Lacey, L Sherr, P Claydon, S Wallage and B Gazzard British HIV Association (BHIVA), BHIVA Secretariat, Mediscript Ltd, 1 Mountview Court, 310 Friern Barnet Lane, London N20 OLD, British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH), Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London W1G OAE and Faculty of Sexual a...

All over the world HIV has been stigmatised, making it difficult for people living with HIV to access testing, treatment, care and counselling or even to act on a diagnosis or get advice and treatment, for fear of being judged. Prejudice in society has also often been reflected and reproduced by health care providers. A human rights approach, which positively incorporates sexual and reproductiv...

BACKGROUND There is limited understanding of health care providers' attitudes towards HIV-infected individuals' reproductive choices, as well as knowledge about safer conception. Our study objective was to explore provider-level factors that serve as barriers and/or facilitators to the provision of reproductive and safer conception services for men and women living with HIV. METHODS Twenty-fi...

OBJECTIVE To determine the sexual and reproductive health priorities of women living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and to allow the values and preferences of such women to be considered in the development of new guidelines. METHODS A core team created a global reference group of 14 women living with HIV and together they developed a global community online survey. The survey, which ...

Over the past four decades, the world has made substantial gains in the effort to prevent unplanned pregnancies and reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, and other reproductive tract infections (RTIs). Yet, STIs and RTIs still cause a heavy health burden, especially in developing countries, and there is an equally urgent unmet need for contraception [1–6]. To...

OBJECTIVE Little is known about the need and demand for integrated reproductive health and HIV services at the population level. DESIGN Descriptive data analysis of household surveys collected by the Integra Initiative. METHODS Household surveys were conducted among 18-49-year-olds in Kenya (N = 1752) and Swaziland (N = 779) in 2009. Data on fertility intentions, contraceptive use, sexual b...