Gender and Hiv/aids: Prevention Among Young People

Costa, Mclntyre, and Ferreira’s study in 2018 documented people having good knowledge about HIV transmission and prevention, although there are still some myths; more so 79.9% of the women are knowledgeable about condom use that prevents transmission of HIV and other related diseases, however, only 46% of them admitted that they regularly use them. Therefore, knowledge does not simply imply sufficiency of preventative tools, nor promote protective behavior. Additionally, women lacking higher education had poorer knowledge of HIV biology and its transmission through sex. Despite their awareness of the HIV cases happening around them and inside their communities, most of the women considered themselves having a little higher exposure, especially those who have not attained higher education.

However, in the younger demographic, a study conducted by Reis, Ramiro, De Matos, and Gaspar (2011) which resulted students who have undergone sex-education in schools, referred that they frequently have had lower sexual behaviors risk due to lesser occasional partners, sex being associated to drugs and alcohol, sexually-transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancies which may lead to tragic abortions.

It is similar to a study by Philippa (2016), which stated that school-based reproductive health and sexual programs were well-received by students and have enacted or performed it as an approach to reduce dangerous sexual behavior.

Contrary to it, the review of Cochrane discovered that sex-education programs do not make any difference on STI rates as well as pregnancy among young people. As a matter of fact, they showed no effects or relationship on the dependent data of their study.

Researchers Lindberg and Zimet found that in their 2012 study, 66% of female respondents of the survey are sexually experienced while 55% of sexually experienced male replied they received sex-education refrained themselves from indulging to sex prior to first vaginal sex as well as birth control. About 20% of respondents said they received abstinence-only education before their first sex, while 16% of sexually experienced female respondents and 24% of sexually experienced male respondents said they were not able to receive any instructions on either abstinence or birth control before first sex. Lindberg and Zimet obtained respondents who were Hispanic or Black and lived in lower class homes. They found out that their mothers had insufficient education and also discovered, according to their data interpretation, women who do not live with both parents at a certain age attended religious services and were less likely to be informed about sex-ed. Accordingly, those respondents in that did not receive any sex-ed had engaged in premature sex. Wherein 86% of them were women and 88% of them were men who were before the age of twenty, unlike with 77% to 78%, respectively, of their sample who were only informed about abstinence and birth control. After the researchers adapted their other socio-demographic variables, receiving any type of sex-education has significantly delayed their actual intercourse, with a stronger correlation towards young men than young women. With both genders, however, there was no symbolic difference in the time frame of their sexual debut. More from their study, they saw that men and women have higher chances to have used contraceptives, and that includes condoms, during their first sex; contrasting those who did not received sex-education in their schools. Respondents who had been educated about sex abstinence, and contraceptives, were more likely to find a partner within three years of their age, as well as a reduction of an unsatisfactory first sex coming from women, none could be said about men.

This had lower probability because they had at least six sexual accomplices, but it is no longer relevant data when the age variable is taken into account with their first sexual experience. Respondents that are constantly concerned with getting an accomplice pregnant and later STI treatment, have understood the use of condoms and other safe-sex devices with sexual intercourse, yet the affiliation lost factual hugeness after scientists controlled for age at first sex. Among female respondents, there were no noteworthy relationship between sex instruction and pregnancy, STI treatment, and prophylactic/condom use finally sex.