Global improvements have been measured in adolescent health during the past decade, yet wide inequalities exist for many indicators when data are disaggregated by gender, household wealth and urban-rural residence, demonstrates a supplement of six articles and a commentary published in BMC Reproductive Health. Countdown to 2030 hosted a webinar to launch the journal supplement on June 23, 2021.
Catherine Kyobutungi from African Population & Health Research Center (APHRC) moderated the webinar, and the lead authors from each of the six papers presented highlights from their analyses. The event included a panel discussion with Cheikh Faye from APHRC and Countdown to 2030, Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli from the World Health Organization, Ties Boerma from University of Manitoba and Countdown to 2030, and Jessica Ferne from the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health.
Panelists discussed the challenges of obtaining good data on adolescent health. For example, the need for triple disaggregation of large datasets (by age, sex and household wealth) can lead to sample sizes that are too small to be useful. This supplement addresses this challenge by combining multiple datasets and analyzing across countries and regions. In the past, the lack of data may have contributed to a scenario of “what is not measured is not done.” Another challenge is that “what is not funded is not done.” However, as noted before, recent years have shown both increased funding and improvements in key indicators. Ultimately the goal is to get local data in the hands of local decisionmakers, panelists noted.
The papers included in the supplement are:
- (Commentary) Adolescent sexual and reproductive health for all in sub-Saharan Africa: a spotlight on inequalities
- Inequalities in early marriage, childbearing and sexual debut among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa
- Wealth-related inequalities in demand for family planning satisfied among married and unmarried adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa
- HIV trends and disparities by gender and urban–rural residence among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa
- Intimate partner violence against adolescents and young women in sub-Saharan Africa: who is most vulnerable?
- Examining the recent trends in adolescent sexual and reproductive health in five countries of sub‐Saharan Africa based on PMA and DHS household surveys
- Are rhetorical commitments to adolescents reflected in planning documents? An exploratory content analysis of adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Global Financing Facility country plans
Brief videos describing the papers are below.
[Video coming soon]