Adolescent Health

We help to change social norms to promote healthier lifestyles through civil society institutions such as sports teams, religious groups, and cultural organizations. Efforts to change social norms must involve adolescents and adults including health providers, teachers, pastors, and parents.

Special interventions include the introduction of HPV vaccination, youth-friendly clinics, voluntary male circumcision, community-based family planning that includes young people, and healthy lifestyles and nutrition behavior change.

Our projects focus on some of the biggest sexual health threats young people face including HIV, female genital mutilation, unwanted pregnancies, and sexual and gender-based violence. Interventions include education on preventing HIV, STIs, and unintended pregnancies, increasing access to PreP and emergency contraception, providing post-rape care, and reducing alcohol, tobacco, and drug use.

We support the development of public policies against child marriage and help communities that implement them. We develop programs to identify high-risk girls, including married adolescents, to protect their health by spacing births, improving nutrition, and building support for young families.

We have expertise in building capacity of health providers, caregivers, and young people themselves to manage the transition from pediatric to adult HIV care. We understand that adolescents who live with HIV need support in a variety of areas, among them relationships with family members and transitioning to independence, mental health, and drug and alcohol abuse. We help partners create programs and policies that meet these needs.