International articleImpact of a school-based peer sexual health intervention on normative beliefs, risk perceptions, and sexual behavior of Zambian adolescents
Section snippets
The Zambia peer sexual health intervention
The Zambia peer sexual health intervention was implemented by the Society for Family Health (SFH) to reduce risky sexual behavior and sexual transmission of HIV among adolescents. The intervention was designed after a needs assessment was conducted that included focus group interviews with adolescents [12] and a review of literature on Zambian adolescents 13, 14, 15, 16.
The intervention had a relatively narrow scope, focusing on promoting abstinence and condom use among male and female
Sample description
The sample used in the analysis contained only the 416 students who were interviewed at baseline and both follow-up assessments, 162 (39%) in the control group and 254 (61%) in the intervention condition. Table 1 shows that there were significant sociodemographic differences between students in the intervention and control groups. The control group consisted of a higher proportion of males than the intervention group, 72% vs. 46%. Students in the control group were significantly more likely
Discussion
Reviews of well-designed studies on the impact of school-based interventions (either teacher-led or peer-led) in developed countries have found several factors to be important in changing adolescent sexual behavior. Effective programs focus on a narrow range of behavioral goals, promote a particular set of social norms, provide accurate but concise information through active learning methods, address social pressures on behaviors, provide skill rehearsal opportunities, and are culturally
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Nils Gade, Shannon England and Dominique Meekers for their comments on an earlier version of this report and to Rebecca Cramer for editing. This research was funded by Tulane University, USAID/Zambia, and by PSI through core support provided by the British Department for International Development (DFID).
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