Study Finds Sexually Active Jamaican Adolescents Report No Use or Inconsistent Use of Condoms

Guttmacher News Relase: HALF OF SEXUALLY ACTIVE ADOLESCENTS IN JAMAICA REPORT INCONSISTENT OR NO USE OF CONDOMS:

Nearly half of sexually active Jamaican adolescents report using condoms inconsistently or not at all in the last year, according to a new study by Kanako Ishida, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, et al., published in International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. Given that the Caribbean region has the second highest HIV prevalence in the world, the authors believe that it is critically important for Jamaican reproductive health education programs and interventions to address this behavior.

Ishida et al. note that despite past research documenting Jamaica’s high levels of adolescent sexual activity, there are few recent reliable estimates on the national prevalence of risk behaviors and associated factors. In their analysis of data from a 2008–2009 nationally representative survey, among 15–19-year-olds who were neither married nor had a child, 54% of the males and 32% of the females had had sex in the previous year. Among the sexually active adolescents, 46% of males and 49% of females had used condoms inconsistently or never during that period, and 52% and 12%, respectively, had had more than one partner. . . .