Setting politics aside to collect cross-national data on sexual health of adolescents.

The periodic collection of data to monitor changes in the sexual health behaviors of adolescents is well established in the United States through the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS). The YRBSS--developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)--includes periodic national state and local school surveys plus other non-periodic components (e.g. a survey of alternative school students). These surveys all use a similar questionnaire the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The YRBS measures six categories of behaviors: those that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; tobacco use; alcohol and other drug use; sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease including HIV infection; dietary behaviors; and physical activity. Nearly all states have conducted a YRBS and many do so every other year typically in the spring of odd-numbered years. A small number of states have occasionally excluded the questions related to sexual health out of concern that their inclusion could jeopardize successful implementation of a states YRBS. Recognizing the difficulty that some states have faced in adopting and maintaining a core set of questions related to sexual health as part of the their state YRBS one might anticipate a similarly high level of difficulty in getting European and other North American countries and regions to adopt a core set of questions permitting cross-national comparisons. In fact nearly all of the 35 nations or regions (e.g. Wales Scotland England) participating in the World Health Organization (WHO)-affiliated health Behaviors in School-aged Children (HSBC) survey during the 2001-2002 school year adopted four YRBS questions related to sexual health and administered them to national samples of adolescents. This article reports on these data collected as part of the wider 2001-2002 HBSC. The article was adapted from the chapter on sexual health in the HBSC International Report recently published by the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Another adaptation of the sexual health chapter may be found elsewhere. (excerpt)