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Social marketing benchmark criteria were used to understand the extent to which single-substance alcohol education programmes targeting adolescents in middle and high school settings sought to change behaviour, utilised theory, included audience research and applied the market segmentation process. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A systematic literature review retrieved a total of 1,495 identified articles; 565 duplicates were removed. The remaining 930 articles were then screened. Articles detailing formative research or programmes targeting multiple substances, parents, families and/or communities, as well as elementary schools and universities were excluded. A total of 31 articles, encompassing 16 qualifying programmes, were selected for detailed evaluation.

The majority of alcohol education programmes were developed on the basis of theory and achieved short- and medium-term behavioural effects. Importantly, most programmes were universal and did not apply the full market segmentation process. Limited audience research in the form of student involvement in programme design was identified.

This systematic literature review focused on single-substance alcohol education programmes targeted at middle and high school student populations, retrieving studies back to the year 2000.

The results of this systematic literature review indicate that application of the social marketing benchmark criteria of market segmentation and audience research may represent an avenue for further extending alcohol education programme effectiveness in middle and high school settings.

Nutrition education plays a significant role in inculcating lifelong healthy dietary behaviours among adolescents. The purpose of this paper is to understand the opinions of parents and teachers regarding nutrition education in private Indian secondary schools.

A cross-sectional, self-administered, paper-based survey comprising both closed- and open-ended questions was completed by 32 teachers and 280 parents who were recruited from five private English-speaking secondary schools in Kolkata, India. Descriptive and cross-tabulation analyses were conducted to compare the responses of teachers and parents. Thematic data analysis informed by template analysis technique was performed to evaluate the qualitative data.

While the curriculum was considered interesting and easy to understand, the gendered nature of the curriculum, excessive rote learning and lack of synchrony between the curriculum and school food services were highlighted as shortcomings of the existing curriculum. The need for the dissemination of food skills either through a compulsory food and nutrition curriculum or through extra-mural activities was expressed by most respondents. Both these ideas were indicative of strong support and motivation for modification in the current curriculum.

These findings emphasise the support for a skills-focussed food and nutrition curriculum to inculcate experiential culinary skills and comprehensive nutrition knowledge in Indian adolescents, thus improving their nutritional and health profiles.

This is the first cross-sectional survey to investigate the views of parents and teachers about the status of food and nutrition education in private Indian secondary schools.

Three distinct, and interrelated, events led to this article. All three actually happened to me. The first was when a young man whom I had known vaguely as a neighborhood kid approached the reference desk where I was working in August, 1974. He said, “Do you have a book on pregnancy? I'm getting married Saturday, and I want to make sure that she takes care of herself.”

Digital technology has great potential for educating today’s digitally oriented adolescents on health. In particular, digital health gamified learning can make the promotion of the sexual well-being of adolescents more effective. Although venereal diseases such as HIV/AIDS have become a greater problem in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries than in any country outside of Africa, little is publicly known about the development of gamified learning for use in counter-measures. This paper aims to address that deficit by presenting the process of developing one such game. The paper highlights how the “My Future Begins Today” game for sexual health education was developed, evaluated and refined in the real-world of low-tech settings and made improvements based on the response of users.

Design-based research (DBR) was used to guide the design, develop, test and refine the digital game in iterative cycles. The evaluation of the effectiveness of iterations of the game was done using adolescent sexual health literacy tests and the validated Motivation, Attitude, Knowledge and Engagement framework, the authors developed based on existing approaches. That framework combines the elements of motivation, attitude, knowledge and engagement, effectiveness was evaluated based on the game’s ability to motivate students, improve their attitudes, increase their acquisition of knowledge and engage them in learning self-rating surveys and interviews. The whole process of game design, testing, evaluation and refinement were underpinned by the activity theory, DBR and participatory design (PD) research.

Participants in the gamified learning platforms demonstrated higher average scores on their post-tests than their counterparts subjected to the traditional teaching classroom. Also, gamified learning groups commented positively on the effectiveness of their instructional approach than their counterparts in the traditional learning group. The stakeholders’ involvement in developing gamified learning provided a good understanding of the importance of the game to the adolescent students and how it was going to be used to address the problem identified. The application of PD contributed to the effectiveness of the game. It involved various actors from various fields who were relevant to the game. Also, engaging targeted users from the beginning resulted in the creation of a better correspondence with the preferences of end-users.

This study has contributed to a better understanding of sex education and knowledge in the area of adolescent reproductive health issues, using developed innovative game mechanics features and its applicability in low-tech settings.

The study will be a recommendation for future researchers in applying this gamified learning concept and its suitability in their teaching practice, particularly regarding sexual health education and adolescent reproductive health issues in low-tech settings of SSA.

Questions have been raised about the ability of HIV/AIDS and sexuality education for young people to modify behaviour, its potential for producing undesirable effects, and dubious rigour in evaluating it. A review of the literature conducted for the World Health Organisation’s former Global Programme on AIDS in 1993, and a more recent update commissioned by the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in 1997 examined these issues. The latter review of 68 articles found good support for the efficacy of HIV/AIDS and sex education in reducing unwanted outcomes of young people’s sexual behaviour. Of 53 articles describing specific interventions, 22 reported significant decreases in coital activity or its markers (e.g. pregnancy) in those who received the intervention(s) compared with controls, and 27 studies reported no effect. Although three studies found a positive relationship between receiving sex education and increased sexual activity, they should be viewed in the context of overwhelming evidence in the opposite direction, and methodological limitations to the extent to which they can be generalised. Lack of rigour and an adequate description of interventions is, however, a feature of many of the studies evaluating the effects of HIV/AIDS and sex education. Although the reviews demonstrate the value of appropriately conducted and targeted interventions, formal sex/HIV education is only one source of information about sexual issues for young people. Further, timing education prior to the onset of sexual intercourse may increase the chance that young people will adopt measures aimed at protecting their health.

Most alcohol education programs are designed by experts, with the target audience largely excluded from this process. Theoretically, application of co-creation which comprises co-design and co-production offers an opportunity to better orient programs to meet audience needs and wants and thereby enhance program outcomes. To date, research has centered on value co-creation, with content co-design receiving limited research attention. This study aims to understand how a target audience would design an intervention and continues by contrasting an audience-designed program with the earlier implemented expert-designed program.

Six co-design sessions were conducted with 58 Year 10 adolescents, aged between 14-16 years old, who had participated in Game On: Know Alcohol, a program developed by experts to address binge drinking. The data were content analyzed.

Analysis revealed that a co-designed program would differ substantially from the expert-driven Game On: Know Alcohol program recently trialed. The results indicate that adolescents prefer interactive activities that engage and challenge. Three alternative program solutions, catering to identified segments in the target audience, are suggested for future implementation and evaluation.

This sample is limited to adolescents from Catholic schools in one state of Australia, and future research is recommended to extend findings beyond this group. This study is limited to establishment of audience (adolescent) preferences, and future experimental field research is needed to develop, implement and evaluate a co-designed program.

This study details a co-design process highlighting differences between expert-designed and audience-designed programs. Future research investigating whether a co-designed program will deliver superior outcomes to an expert-designed program is recommended.

The purpose of this review is to critically analyse the extant research and help readers understand the ways the school-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) can contribute towards youth development and urge policymakers to implement nationwide good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE.

This literature review has been designed using the extant information available on Google Scholar, Web of Science (WoS) and PubMed.

The findings of this review inform that there is a significant need amongst the youth of the day for good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE. Also, the findings suggest that there are significant associations between school-based CSE and youth development.

This research paper although draws from extant literature about sexuality education and its delivery across the globe, it applies the sexuality education scenario in India.

The findings of this review aim to implicate nationwide policy-level changes to implement CSE in the school curricula. There are more practical behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, which are discussed in the review.

Due to the behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, it may help in the upbringing of responsible citizens who are free of health complications, who can make independent health-related decisions and look after each other in the community.

This review is an original contribution from the author. Whilst there is extant literature about CSE and youth development, this article fills the void by investigating the interdependent contributions that both the concepts can make to one another and encourages more research on this topic.

There are insufficient health and nutrition education interventions targeting adolescent females in rural contexts in Indonesia. There is also a paucity of research evaluating the impact of implemented programs. This paper aims to develop and test the validity of a tailored education module to improve the knowledge, attitude and skills of adolescent females on health and nutrition.

The study was conducted between 2019 and 2023 in Ban Village, Karangasem Regency. This study used an explanatory sequential mixed methods research approach consisting of three stages: formative research using mixed methods, validation and review of the module by experts using the Delphi technique and pilot testing of the module. In the formative research stage, there were 40 female adolescent respondents implicated, in the validation and module review stage, there were 14 nutrition and public health experts implicated, and in the pilot test, a new cohort of 60 female adolescents were recruited. Validity was assessed by exploring the feasibility, reliability and linguistics of the module. The Delphi score was measured by the mean score and standard deviation.

The Health and Balanced Nutrition Education Module was impactful in improving the health and nutrition of female adolescents in Ban Village. The validation score of the module shows that from the total score of 4, construct reliability obtained a score of 3.18 with a 0.35 standard deviation. The construct feasibility and language revealed better scores, which were 3.31 with 0.4 standard deviations and 3.29 with 0.46 standard deviations, respectively. After dissemination of the module, participants’ mean score of knowledge on the importance of balanced nutrition significantly improved by 68.8% (p-value = 0.0001).

The Health and Balance Nutrition Education Module has been proven to improve the awareness of adolescents on balanced nutrition. Nevertheless, this study also has limitations due to the small number of respondents attending the information sessions and the pilot testing. Further studies should consider using implementation research for scale-up in other parts of Bali.

This study provides insight for health and nutrition educators for creating modules that better align with the context and information needs of the target group particularly for adolescents in rural areas, which are seldom neglected.

This study indicates that the trialed education materials can play a role in improving female adolescents’ knowledge of nutrition throughout their life cycle and their role in preventing stunting and noncommunicable diseases in later adult life.

The health and nutrition module trialed in the study is tailored specifically to the context of rural areas of Bali and validated by public health experts, then tested with 60 adolescents.

This study seeks to explore what young women want from their school‐based sex education.

Qualitative methods were used to explore the perspectives of two groups of young women from Uganda and Scotland.

Of particular importance to all the young women were: a diverse sex education curriculum appropriate to the ages of the students, being taught by an outside female facilitator, single‐sex classes and access to a female teacher. Furthermore, they proposed that discussion between small groups of friends is very useful. The Scottish group said that having a young teacher, teaching about emotions and relationships and being guided through their own decision making is also important. The Ugandan group emphasized the importance of being taught by female family members and having written materials provided on sex education.

The study showed that young women from different backgrounds have strong opinions about sex education, and are an important resource for policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key barriers to the delivery of school-based HIV and sexuality education in selected countries in Asia.

A review of published literature on barriers to school-based HIV and sexuality in countries in Asia was conducted, with a focus on research carried out after 1990. The paper also draws on recently undertaken national situation analyses of HIV and sexuality education conducted by the second author with support from UNESCO, as well as more general Asia-Pacific regional assessments undertaken by others.

Four key barriers to the delivery of good quality, school-based HIV and sexuality education are identified: cultural and contextual factors, policy factors, resource constraints and school-level factors.

The paper maps these four barriers as key areas in which action needs to occur in order to improve the delivery of school-based HIV and sexuality education. Potential levers for success are highlighted.