Sexual and reproductive self care among women and girls: insights from ethnographic studies

Hardon, Anita; Pell, Christopher; Taqueban, E.M.; Narasimhan, Manjulaa

doi:10.1136/bmj.l1333

Cited by 18 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Harm reduction from above would recognize the sexual health needs of youth, as well as the pragmatic ways they use emergency contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies, achieve sexual hygiene through vaginal washes and penile tissues, and shape their (trans)gendered ways of being in the world. Harm reduction from above efforts could offer young people avenues for developing safer sexual health chemicals that meet their needs (Hardon et al 2019).…”

Section: Reducing Harm From Abovementioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Futures

Hardon¹

2020

Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Here we turn to the strategies that young people use to prevent chemical harms, not just those related to single chemicals but also those related to the feedback loops and compounding effects generated by the multiplicity of chemicals in daily life. Chemical Futures takes as an example youth activists in France, the Générations Cobayes, and their mobilization against endocrine-disrupting chemicals. We examine what contributes to the relative invisibility of toxic risk, pointing especially to the role of corporations in generating uncertainty about scientific evidence. The ChemicalYouth project engaged in a range of collaborative, youth-led projects that demonstrate the many ways youth may be engaged in “harm reduction from below.” We suggest that a ChemicalYouth 2.0 project might involve a wider range of researchers, advisors, and laboratories, to make more visible the multiple toxicities that make up young people’s everyday lives. Finally, we argue that governments should team up with youth and complement their efforts with “harm reduction from above” initiatives to regulate unsafe chemicals and support youths’ efforts to observe the effects of chemicals on their bodies and share information with others.

show abstract

Section: Reducing Harm From Abovementioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Futures

Hardon¹

2020

Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Young women who face an unwanted pregnancy in settings where they have difficulty accessing contraceptives need to know how misoprostol can be used effectively and safely, and where they can order these pills without paying exorbitant fees to local abortionists. Taken together, this means that educators and designers of reproductive health technologies need to acknowledge the embodied ways that young people express their sexuality and learn from their collaborative chemical experiments (Hardon et al 2019). They could invite young people to join in the co-production of better chemicals for sex.…”

Section: Co-creating Youth-sensitive Sexual Health Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sexual health policymakers could learn from such experiments, as they reveal young people's sexual health desires and needs. Young people, we suggest, should become collaborators in future research on sexual and reproductive health technologies, making sure they fit with their everyday realities and sexual desires (Hardon et al 2019).…”

Section: In Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Sexualities

Hardon¹

2020

Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this chapter, we present ethnographies from the Philippines, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and France that together show how young people use chemicals to shape their bodies, enhance their sexual pleasure, and foster their sexual hygiene. Through these intimate stories, we show how young people use chemicals to try out different sexual identities, connect with partners, enhance sexual experiences, and prevent unwanted pregnancies, as well as enhance their sexual performance. In this way, chemicals are used both as a way to relate to others and also to explore themselves. In Chemical Sexualities, we show how young people use chemicals to address their sexual needs and explore their sexual desires in four distinct ways: to shape their bodies, to enhance sexual performance, for sexual hygiene and STI prevention, and to abort unwanted pregnancies. Each of these “do-it-yourself” chemical sexualities involves various practices, which we compare and contrast across field sites to gain a better understanding of what is at stake in young people’s sexual lives.

show abstract

“…First, identifying shared and differential knowledge, uptake and access between SRH interventions can inform tailored interventions to improve awareness and access to less utilised interventions. 22 Second, understanding places of access for a range of self-care interventions for SRH can inform implementation. 3 , 23–25 Third, understanding patterns of health worker confidence, knowledge, and personal use of self-care interventions can inform more responsive health systems and linkage to care.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uptake and provision of self-care interventions for sexual and reproductive health: findings from a global values and preferences survey

Logie

Berry

Ferguson

et al. 2022

Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Self-care interventions hold the potential to improve sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and well-being. Yet key knowledge gaps remain regarding how knowledge and uptake vary across different types of self-care interventions. There is also limited understanding of health workers’ confidence in promoting SRH self-care interventions, and how this may differ based on personal uptake experiences. To address these knowledge gaps, we conducted a web-based cross-sectional survey among health workers and laypersons from July to November 2018. We investigated the following information about SRH self-care interventions: knowledge and uptake; decisions for use; and associations between health workers’ uptake and providing prescriptions, referrals, and/or information for these interventions. Participants ( n = 837) included laypersons ( n = 477) and health workers ( n = 360) from 112 countries, with most representation from the WHO European Region (29.2%), followed by the Americas (28.4%) and African (23.2%) Regions. We found great heterogeneity in knowledge and uptake by type of SRH self-care intervention. Some interventions, such as oral contraception, were widely known in comparison with interventions such as STI self-sampling. Across interventions, participants perceived benefits of privacy, convenience, and accessibility. While pharmacies and doctors were preferred access points, this varied by type of self-care intervention. Health workers with knowledge of the self-care intervention, and who had themselves used the self-care intervention, were significantly more likely to feel confident in, and to have provided information or referrals to, the same intervention. This finding signals that health workers can be better engaged in learning about self-care SRH interventions and thereby become resources for expanding access.

show abstract

Sexual and reproductive self care among women and girls: insights from ethnographic studies

Abstract: Ethnographic studies examining how women manage their sexual and reproductive health can inform strategies to address unmet needs, say Anita Hardon and colleagues

Cited by 18 publications

References 24 publications

Chemical Futures

Chemical Futures

Chemical Sexualities

Uptake and provision of self-care interventions for sexual and reproductive health: findings from a global values and preferences survey

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About