In 2009, an estimated 1.8 million people were infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, with the vast majority of infections occurring through unprotected sexual intercourse before the age of 25. Women and girls experience a disproportionate share of this burden. In sub-Saharan Africa, young women aged 15-24 years are as much as eight times more likely than men to be HIV positive.1 This difference may largely be due to the unprotected sexual intercourse young girls have with older partners who are more likely to be infected. In order to minimize their infection risk for HIV, it is crucial for younger women to adopt safer sexual behaviors. A previous study found that young girls in rural Kenya were responsive to risk information and adapted their behavior in order to minimize their infection risk. This study aims to test the external validity of the previous finding, and disentangle between several factors of success to help setting up an optimal information tool against risky sexual behavior.
In 2007, 5.1 percent of the population of Cameroon was living with HIV. This proportion was even greater among young people between the ages of 15 and 24, with 6.2 percent living with HIV. Moreover, HIV prevalence was more than three times higher among young girls than among boys. This may be largely attributed to girls becoming sexually active at a younger age. In 2006, 14 percent of girls between 15 and 19 years had their first sexual intercourse before the age of 14 in Cameroon.2 In an attempt to minimize new HIV infections among this vulnerable population, the Cameroon Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health worked with researchers to design a generalizable school-based HIV/AIDS education program. The program targeted 13-year-old teenage girls since at this age, most teenage girls have not yet engaged in sexual activity but are likely to start soon.
This study evaluated a school-based HIV/AIDS education program, known as ISAS (Information, Teenage Sexuality and Health), on fertility, reproductive health, and high-risk sexual behavior of young girls in 8th grade. The design of the program varied along two dimensions, the content and who delivered the message. The content was either phrased as a “classic government message,” which focuses on abstinence, fidelity, and condom use or a “relative risk message,” which uses this same curriculum, but adds information on infection rates by gender and age. The curriculum was taught by either permanent school staff or external consultants. Three hundred twenty public schools were randomly divided into four groups.
- “Classic government message” delivered by permanent school staff
- “Classic government message” delivered by an external consultant
- “Relative risk message” delivered by an external consultant
- No invention (comparison group)
A baseline survey was administered in January of 2010. The information campaigns were then carried out between February and May. The follow up survey was completed between January and April of the following year.
Results forthcoming.
1 World Health Organization (WHO). Global AIDS Report 2010.
2 World Health Organization (WHO). Epidemiological Fact Sheet on HIV and AIDS: Cameroon. September 2008.
