Extract

This presentation outlines the World Health Organization’s process of developing an operational framework for sexual health, reflective of the current working definition, in order to provide clarity to health programmers and researchers. The recommendations for the framework are informed by a systematic review of existing sexual health frameworks as well as the results of a recent expert consultation conducted by WHO. The framework clearly depicts all service areas of sexual health and reproductive health and recognizes sexual health as first a distinct and subsequently as a linked concept with reproductive health. The framework situates sexual health in the hierarchy of factors that influence sexual health: including dyadic, community and structural factors. Most importantly, the framework recognizes that sexual health vulnerabilities and needs emerge, exist, and vary cross the life course and within different populations.

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