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The purpose of this paper is to identify sexual health information needs and the cognitive and affective factors correlated with the best answer chosen by social Q&A users.

The study collected questions and answers regarding sexual health information on a social Q&A site, and analyzed the questions and a paired sample composed of best and non-best answers (n=480).

The main information needs of consumers are human development, sexual behavior, and sexual health. Best answers are more likely to include both cognitive (higher level of readability, risky information, social norms) and affective factors (empathy, positive/negative feelings, and optimistic information) than non-best answers.

The study illuminates the roles of social Q&A as a unique platform to discuss sensitive health topics due to the fact that consumers use such social media sites as critical complementary health information sources.

If health information providers develop information with the factors that the study suggests, not only will it be more adopted by consumers, but it will also ameliorate the quality concerns about online health information.

Previous studies only investigated the most prevalent factors, rather than the most effective ones, which have a greater influence on best answer selection. This study compares the best answers and the non-best answers to overcome the limitations of the previous studies. Above all, the study applied the persuasion concepts to address the cognitive and affective perspectives to the answer evaluations of social Q&A.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between sexual health principles and the procurement of sexual services. Most that has been written about sex work has been done so from the perspective of deviancy; in contrast, recent work examining the practice of sex work has explored and evidenced how emotional and intimacy needs are met through procurement. Recognising the conventional aspects of procuring sexual services, this paper seeks to examine and understand this social practice through applying Braun-Harvey and Vigorito’s (2015) six principles of sexual health.

Based on a mixed method approach, this paper presents findings from a survey consisting of a sample of 309 men who procure sexual services and 20 interviews from a sub-sample of the men who were surveyed and female sex workers who provide such services.

The findings illustrate the reasons for men’s procurement of sexual services, which corroborate with the accounts of women who sell the services and reflect how the procurement of sexual services align with principles of sexual health, which, in turn, challenge the stigma of buying sex.

The practical implications of this study are: provision of examining and understanding sex work through the principles of sexual health; provision of a framework to examine and understand sex work in a less stigmatising way; support for the growth of sexual health and criminal justice research; and provision of a platform for further research examining sexual health, sex work and decriminalisation.

This study is unique as it brings together principles of sexual health as a tool for examining the procurement of sexual services, a practice that is demonised in many parts of the globe. A consequence of this study is its presentation of a novel understanding for the social practice of procurement that aides in both challenging the stigmatisation and criminalisation of sex work.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between women’s sexual health agency and their intent to initiate communications with their doctors. The research questions examined the effect sexual health agency has on patient-doctor communication, women’s emotional responses to health advertisements encouraging patient communication with their doctors, attitude toward the message and behavioral intentions after exposure to the advertising message.

An experimental design was implemented via an online questionnaire instrument to test the differences between younger-aged women (25 to 45 years) and mature-aged women (46 to 70 years). It was observed that 188 women who reported their status as single and sexually active in the past 12 months were exposed to a health advertisement that encouraged patient-doctor communication. Analyses were conducted to compare between-group measures on sexual health agency, emotional response and attitude toward the ad and behavioral intention.

No statistical difference existed between younger and older women. In general, women expect their doctor to lead conversations about sexual health but are positively reinforced by health messages that encourage their assertiveness as patients.

The small sample size also may have limited the study’s potential to evaluate differences between age segments. Future research should explore this further.

The study provides evidence that sexual health advertising can reinforce women’s intent to initiate conversations with doctors regardless of age.

Health communications can bolster women’s sexual health agency and improve patient-initiated conversations with doctors.

The study is the first to explore advertising messaging’s potential for applying health agency as a communication strategy for encouraging sexual health communications between women and their doctors.

Sexual health is insufficiently addressed in health care and higher education, which can lead to lower quality of life and negative health outcomes. To improve the situation, it is necessary to address both the needs of patients and professionals and collaboratively engage in finding sustainable solutions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility and value of large-scale digital coproduction in higher education.

A study of a project that developed seven interprofessional, digital master-level courses covering different topics related to sexual health. The project was performed through digital coproduction in higher education, with over 100 persons with various backgrounds working together online in designing content and novel digital learning activities.

Large-scale digital coproduction in higher education is feasible and valuable, but the process demands sensitive leadership, understanding of coproduction processes and willingness to learn from each other. To meet the demands from practice it is important to understand the complexity, ever-changing and unpredictable working life changes which, in turn, demands engagement in continuous learning, training activities and the need for formal education.

The study provides learning of the feasibility of the value of large-scale digital coproduction in higher education, which is a novel way of working in higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the sexual and reproductive health needs, barriers to accessing services as well as the expectations of the youth who do not use the services provided by the Youth Counseling and Health Service Centres in Ankara Province, Turkey.

The study is based on the results of 12 focus group discussions conducted with young people in the 8th (14‐ to 15‐year‐old) and 12th (aged 17‐ to 18‐year‐old) grades who are not service users.

The findings suggest that gender, socio‐economic level of the family, religion, the condition of the facilities and the visibility of the centres are factors affecting service usage.

The paper analyses factors that affect the use of services, such as male vs female, primary school vs high school, centre vs periphery, and shows how religion, region, gender, education and socio‐economic dimensions have to be taken into account in understanding the sensitivity of sexuality‐related issues among adolescents.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how school-based sexuality education has had a long and troubled history of exclusionary pedagogical practices that have negatively affected such populations as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) individuals, people of color, and the disabled. The social ecological model is introduced as a way of offering sexuality educators and school administrators a way of thinking more broadly about how to achieve sexual health through sexuality education efforts inside and outside of the school environment.

This paper uses critical analysis of current and historical school-based sexuality education methods and curricula used in the USA. Authors use both academic journals and their own expertise/experience teaching sexuality education in the USA to analyze and critique the sources of sexuality education information and curricula used in schools.

Historically, sexuality education in school settings in the USA has been biased and has generally not offered an educational experience fostering sexual health for all students. There are now welcome signs of reform and movement toward a more inclusive and progressive approach, but there is still some way to go. Sexuality education programs in schools need to be further and fundamentally reformed to do more to foster sexual health particularly for LGBTQ individuals, students of color, and people with disabilities.

This paper offers sexuality educators ways of addressing structural issues within the sexuality education curriculum to better serve all students to increase the quality of their sexual health. Integrating critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education can increase students’ sexual health along physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions.

This paper provides historical analysis along with the identification of structural difficulties in the sexuality education curriculum and proposes both critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education as ways of addressing sex and relationships education.

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.

Available studies on parent-child communication about sexual and reproductive health in Ghana have largely focused on assessing communication frequency, barriers, and who communicates with whom within the family. The purpose of this paper is to examine parental and family contextual factors that predict parental communication with young people about sexual and reproductive health.

A cross-sectional interviewer-administered survey was conducted among 790 parents selected through a multistage sampling technique. The Cronbach’s α statistic was used to assess various parental and family contextual constructs on parent-child communication about sexual and reproductive health. Separate hierarchical multiple regression models for mothers and fathers were constructed to assess predictors of parental communication about sexual and reproductive health.

Nearly the same factors predicted mothers’ and fathers’ communication with young people about sexual and reproductive health matters. The predictors for both mothers and fathers included high socioeconomic status (SES), family religiousity, parent discipline, perceived parent sexual knowledge and parent trustworthiness. Parent permissiveness predicted only for fathers.

Parental communication on sexual and reproductive health is influenced by high SES, family religiousity, parent sexual knowledge, parent discipline and trustworthiness. Interventional programmes on communication about sexual and reproductive health need to take cognisance of these factors to improve parent-child communication about sexual and reproductive health.

This paper adds to the limited evidence on parent-child communication about sexual and reproductive health in Ghana, by examining parental and family contextual factors that influence parental communication with young people about sexual and reproductive health.

American sex education is continually under fire due to conflicting morals surrounding hegemonic sociocultural norms. These programs, and ultimately the students, are often victims of information inequities which leverage adult control over minors to prevent access to sexual health information. Withholding salient sexual health information infringes on intertwined tenets of human rights, such as education and information access. Spurred by recent disputes and barriers to updating unethical curricula in the states of Arizona and Texas, this chapter uses a human rights lens to explore the current information inequities in K-12 sexual education and students’ precarious positions in policy spaces. This framework demonstrates how libraries are uniquely protected spaces for intellectual freedom and the roles librarians can and should play as sexual health information providers in order to help students overcome information inequities. This chapter will provide recommendations for librarians and other educators to inform and organize advocacy as well as leverage current library operations to support adolescents’ sexual health literacy.

Purpose: We review theory and research to suggest how research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) population health could more completely account for social class.

Approach: First, we review theory on social class, gender, and sexuality, especially pertaining to health. Next, we review research on social class among SGM populations. Then, we review 42 studies of SGM population health that accounted for one or more components of social class. Finally, we suggest future directions for investigating social class as a fundamental driver of SGM health.

Findings: Social class and SGM stigma are both theorized as “fundamental causes” of health, yet most studies of SGM health do not rigorously theorize social class. A few studies control socioeconomic characteristics as mediators of SGM health disparities, but that approach obscures class disparities within SGM populations. Only two of 42 studies we reviewed examined SGM population health at the intersections of social class, gender, and sexuality.

Research implications: Researchers interested in SGM population health would benefit from explicitly stating their chosen theory and operationalization of social class. Techniques such as splitting samples by social class and statistical interactions can help illuminate how social class and SGM status intertwine to influence health.

Originality: We synthesize theory and research on social class, sexuality, and gender pertaining to health. In doing so, we hope to help future research more thoroughly account for social class as a factor shaping the lives and health of SGM people.