TY - JOUR
T1 - Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa
AU - Blum, Robert W.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part through the William H. Gates Sr. Endowment, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and The World Bank.
PY - 2007/9
Y1 - 2007/9
N2 - Sub-Saharan Africa is going through rapid social, political, and economic transformations that have a profound impact on youth. The present review explores trends and outcomes as they relate to education, family formation and sexual and reproductive health and the interrelationships among these areas. It is based on both published and unpublished reports. Over the past 20 years, school enrollment has increased for much of the subcontinent; although the gender gap has narrowed, females remain educationally disadvantaged. Likewise, marriage is occurring later today than a generation ago, posing new challenges of out-of-wedlock births, clandestine abortions, and an increased likelihood of engaging in premarital sex. So, too, although there has been a slowing of the population growth in much of the region, in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the population is doubling every 30 years. Although acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is the predominant cause of death among youth, maternal mortality remains a major risk of death for youth-in some countries 600 times greater than that of peers in the industrialized world.
AB - Sub-Saharan Africa is going through rapid social, political, and economic transformations that have a profound impact on youth. The present review explores trends and outcomes as they relate to education, family formation and sexual and reproductive health and the interrelationships among these areas. It is based on both published and unpublished reports. Over the past 20 years, school enrollment has increased for much of the subcontinent; although the gender gap has narrowed, females remain educationally disadvantaged. Likewise, marriage is occurring later today than a generation ago, posing new challenges of out-of-wedlock births, clandestine abortions, and an increased likelihood of engaging in premarital sex. So, too, although there has been a slowing of the population growth in much of the region, in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the population is doubling every 30 years. Although acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is the predominant cause of death among youth, maternal mortality remains a major risk of death for youth-in some countries 600 times greater than that of peers in the industrialized world.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2007.04.005
DO - 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2007.04.005
M3 - Review article
C2 - 17707292
AN - SCOPUS:34547850128
SN - 1054-139X
VL - 41
SP - 230
EP - 238
JO - Journal of Adolescent Health
JF - Journal of Adolescent Health
IS - 3
ER -