TWO RESEARCH INTO ADOLESCENT HEALTH NEEDS (PAGE 44)

The University of Cape Coast (UCC) in collaboration with the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) and Guttmacher Institute of New York in the United States of America (USA) has completed a research on “Protecting the Next Generation in Ghana: New Evidence on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs’’
The research, which started in 2002, primarily sought to obtain information about young people for policy makers, planning and programming in the country, and also shed light on the many sexual and reproductive health care needs among adolescents.
Professor Kofi Awusabo-Asare, a lecturer at the Geography and Tourism Department of the UCC, presented a report on the research at a workshop at the Sunyani Polytechnic in the Brong Ahafo Region.
He said the government was making efforts to address the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents, and that included the 2000 Adolescent Reproductive Health Policy and the 2001 National HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections.
The workshop was attended by 40 participants, made up of teachers from junior and senior high schools, lecturers from the Sunyani Polytechnic as well as officers from the Sunyani Municipal Education Office.
According to the report, since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, many countries and organisations had attempted to improve the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents as part of a strategy to improve the quality of overall health and to facilitate socio-economic development.
It pointed out that addressing the sexual and reproductive healthcare needs of adolescents could empower young people to make informed decisions about their sexual behaviour and in turn help them to become healthy adults.
The report indicated that survey and demographic findings revealed some of the challenges that Ghana faced in addressing the sexual and reproductive health needs of its young people, adding that adolescents between 10 and 19 years accounted for more than one fifth of Ghana’s population.
According to the report, slightly more than half of adolescents also aged between 12 and 19 lived in the rural areas and had attended secondary school.
The report, among other interventions, recommended that comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education programmes should include up-to-date information about puberty, abstinence, pregnancy, contraception and the range of sexually transmitted infections, adding that abstinence and the delay of sexual debut could reduce the likelihood of sexual risk-taking that might lead to poor reproductive health outcomes.
However, it said, adolescents needed to be prepared for when they began having sex, and ensure that they had access to comprehensive and accurate information about sexual and reproductive health issues, and how they could increase their knowledge and counter misconceptions, thus equipping them to make informed decisions about their reproductive health.
The report further indicated that because the prevalence of sexual activity increased dramatically after 14 years, especially for females, it was important that young adolescents be included in sexual and reproductive health programmes.
It explained that school-based family life education offered a prime opportunity to target the majority of young adolescents because so many attended school, and again recommended that the Ghana Education Service (GES) should ensure that family life education was available to all students at the upper primary level and above.
Additionally, it recommended that, the GES, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community leaders and other stakeholders involved in developing and implementing community-based programmes should incorporate skills training into their efforts.
The report still urged the GES to review and update the curricula in colleges that train family life education teachers and also train more teachers to handle family life education classes at the basic level as well as intensify its in-service training for teachers already in the field.
It further recommended that the GES should expand its collaboration with the Ghana Health Service so as to increase the effectiveness of the school health education programme.