Adolescent sexual and reproductive health

Abstract

This paper assesses how young people and adolescents are defined within each country according to its laws and policies. Additionally, the reproductive health situation of adolescents varies with gender and age. Age of onset of intercourse, age of marriage and child bearing, use of contraception, and the status of women in society all vary with country and region of the world. These variations have direct implications for the population's reproductive health, with potential consequences leading to disability, infertility, sexual violence and abuse, and even death. Nutritional status, access to educational opportunities, access to reproductive health services and commodities, and some life style behaviours such as alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse, may all have an impact on the future reproductive health of the current and the next generations.