Abstract
BackgroundThe global number of youths has risen with a majority living in Southeast Asia. In Cambodia, rural youths often face difficult barriers to health, which include lack of sexual and reproductive health knowledge, information, and services. Risky behaviors are a threat to the health of many young people in Cambodia.MethodsWe studied a sample of 300 youths to describe sexual and reproductive health characteristics and risky behaviors in two rural provinces of Cambodia. Using a multi-staged sampling method, 30 villages were selected for interviewing. A peer-to-peer interviewing criterion was used that matched interviewer to interviewee based upon sex. Logistic regression models were used to compare risk between sexes and assess for associations between reproductive health variables, gender, youth attitudes, and risky youth social behaviors.ResultsA majority (90 %) stated that a boy or girl should defer sex till marriage. A majority of youths (92 %) also reported that they may or definitely will seek sexual and reproductive health services in the future. About 5.4 % of youth had a prior sexual experience. Only 6.7 % of youth reported having they traveled to a local health center, hospital or clinic to seek healthcare for a reproductive health problem. Overall, 27 % reported alcohol use in prior 30 days. Relative to girls, boys were more likely to report alcohol use, going out late at night with friends, gambling, pornography use, gambling, and practicing risky behaviors with peers. Living with both parents and current school enrollment, had limited impact on rural youth’s individual and social behaviors.ConclusionAlthough there are favorable findings compatible with traditional Cambodian values and beliefs, the youth in this study are challenged with alcohol use, practicing risky behaviors with peers, and low condom use. Findings have implications for practice and policy to prevent substance abuse and improve outcomes for substance use, sexual and reproductive health.
Highlights
The world’s adolescent population has increased to the highest level in recent history.In 2012, the world had 1.6 billion persons aged 12–24 year, 721 million of which were adolescents aged 12–17 years, and 850 million were youth aged 18–24 years [1]
We assessed age categories and found that 40 % of rural youths were between 15–19 years and boys represented the older categories and girls younger categories
Our study of rural Cambodian youths contributes to previous studies indicating that reproductive health is a public health concern in developing countries such as Cambodia
Summary
The world’s adolescent population has increased to the highest level in recent history.In 2012, the world had 1.6 billion persons aged 12–24 year, 721 million of which were adolescents aged 12–17 years, and 850 million were youth aged 18–24 years [1]. In the Asia Pacific region, youth comprise about 712 million people [2] with millions of these young people. Cambodia has the youngest population in Southeast Asia, with 22 % of the population comprising of young people is between 15 and 24 years of age [5, 6]. It is estimated that there will be about 4 million people under the age of 24 year by 2015 [7, 8]. According to a 2009 report by the Population Council, young people face many concerns in terms of sexual and reproductive health [10] such as sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe. Risky behaviors are a threat to the health of many young people in Cambodia
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