Sexual Health: a Public Health Perspective

"Sexual Health: A Public Health Perspective provides a comprehensive, yet a practical resource on sexual health for public health professionals. The book elaborates sexual health from a variety of angles including biomedical, behavioural, social and contextual as well as giving a clear articulation of public health interventions for improving sexual health. Illustrative examples relevant to a variety of settings facilitate understanding and applicability of knowledge to both low- and high-resource settings. The book is highly recommended for public health programmers and practitioners, and those working in the area of sexual health."
Dr Lale Say, Co-ordinator, Department of Reproductive Health and Research (RHR), World Health Organization, UK

"A great and novel approach which demonstrates theoretically and through many examples, the need to consider issues of sexual health by understanding sexuality not as a fact of nature but as a social construction. A valuable link between academic knowledge and sexual health policies that invites sexual health professionals to consider the politic, economic and social determinants of sexuality and health issues related to it."
Dr N Bajos, Research Director at INSERM (National Institute for Health and Medical Research), France

This timely book introduces social aspects of the study of sexual health and their application to public health practice.

The book addresses five key themes: Conceptual and theoretical aspects of sexual health, Sexual health outcomes of risk and vulnerability, Improving sexual health status and Measuring and assessing sexual health status. The authors consider each of these themes within their cultural and historical context and illustrate topics with international examples and case studies.

Key features of the book include:

• A spotlight on populations rather than individuals, and a focus on the prevention of ill health and promotion of well being.
• A global perspective; the book makes the distinction between developing and developed countries, but recognises that inequalities are to be found within as well as between countries.
• A view of sexual behaviour as socially learned rather than biologically given and so as amenable to change and intervention to improve sexual health status.
• An emphasis on ways in which risk and vulnerability are products, not only of individual behaviours, but of the social context in which they are practiced.

Written by authors with a wide range of experience, this book will be a valuable resource for public health practitioners and those studying and working in the area of sexual health.

Understanding Public Health is an innovative series published by Open University Press in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood.

Contributors: Sevgi O Aral, Chris Bonell, Helen Burchett, Joanna Busza, Martine Collumbien, Simon Forrest, Rebecca French, Claudia Garcia-Moreno, Anna Glasier, Jami Leichliter, Kirstin Mitchell, Will Nutland, Thomas Peterman, Elisabeth Pisani, Kaye Wellings, Meg Wiggins and Maria Zuurmond.

Kaye Wellings is Professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health, and Head of the Department of Social and Environmental Health Research, at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She is a founder of and Principal Investigator on the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles and she is internationally recognised as an expert in sexual health.

Kirstin Mitchell is Lecturer in Sexual and Reproductive Health at the LSHTM. She has lived and worked for extensive periods in Africa and is currently working on the third UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.

Martine Collumbien is Senior Lecturer in Sexual and Reproductive Health at the LSHTM. She is a demographer by training with extensive experience of methodological and evaluation research. Her work has a global reach, with a particular focus on South Asia.