Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Abstinence-only risk avoidance approaches have had limited impact on reducing new infections. This cluster-randomized trial examines a risk reduction approach to curbing risky sex for school-going girls in Botswana.
Intervention participants received a 1-h intervention revealing a safer sex option: dating same-age partners which have x lower HIV prevalence than older partners. Primary outcomes were pregnancy as a proxy for unprotected sex and HIV. Secondary outcomes included self-reported sexual behavior. Generalized linear multilevel models with school-level robust variance for adjusted relative risk ratios were used in an intention-to-treat analysis.
Moreover, baseline beliefs of which partner is riskiest mediate the magnitude of effects. Information on safe sex options can change sexual behavior. The success of the intervention working across contexts will depend on various factors, such as age of sexual debut and baseline beliefs.
Registered 31 December Retrospectively registered. However, new HIV infections persist with 1. The majority of new infections occur through sexual intercourse [ 3 ]. Yet the evidence on sexual health education interventions that work is sparse. The dominant approach to prevention for youth has focused on abstinence campaigns [ 4 ].
This approach is rooted in cultural, religious, and social factors. While optimal in theory, many young people do not abstain in practice [ 4 ]. In the absence of attractive safe sex options, they are left with one option: risky sex. Thus, abstinence-only messaging is missing a margin of impact by failing to provide a safe option to sexually active youth that would prefer a safe sex option if offered. Such risk reduction approaches have met with success in other domains, including smoking and drugs injection.
