Question

What is the ABC health promotion campaign? Why was it successful in certain African countries and not in the United States?

Answer 1

Ans) Abstinence, be faithful, use a condom, also known as the ABC strategy or abstinence-plus sex education, also known as abstinence-based sex education, is a sex education policy based on a combination of "risk avoidance" and harm reduction which modifies the approach of abstinence-only sex education by including education about the value of partner reduction safe sex and birth control methods. Abstinence-only sex education is strictly to promote the sexual abstinence until marriage, and does not teach about safe sex or contraceptives. The abstinence-based sex education program is meant to stress abstinence and include information on safe sex practices. In general terms, this strategy of sex education is a compromise between abstinence-only education and comprehensive sex education. The ABC approach was developed in response to the growing epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Africa, and to prevent the spread of other sexually transmitted diseases.

- A comparison of HIV/AIDS policies in Botswana and Uganda is revealing. It
helps to highlight the kinds of policies that are necessary to come to terms with the pandemic
in Africa, where it is already a public health disaster. It is argued that the promotion
of condoms at an early stage proved to be counter-productive in Botswana, whereas the lack of condom promotion during the 1980s and early 1990s contributed to the relative success of behaviour change strategies in Uganda.

- Other important factors included national and local-level leadership, the engagement (or alienation) of religious groups and local healers and, most controversially, procedures of social compliance. We end with a call for more draconian measures than are currently envisaged.

- Health promotion messages should begin in early adolescence, as the key risk periods for starting smoking, taking drugs, and taking sexual risks are before age 14. In this early stage, health promotion messages should focus on the “here and now” risk rather than risks in adult life.

- The main current strategic approaches to health promotion for adolescents have three main emphases. The first, and by far the most effective, is health promotion by society as a whole on behalf of adolescents—for example, banning cigarette advertising and making emergency contraception available over the counter.​

- The second is health promotion by professionals with a “health education” interest, exhorting adolescents to behave in healthy ways—for example, not to smoke, to use contraception, and to eat a balanced diet. These individual approaches are not effective. The third approach is to improve young people's social abilities. Evidence exists that improving these abilities so that young people can choose whether to accept or reject certain courses of behaviour—for example, reject a lift home by a drunken boyfriend—is also effective in enabling young people to make independent choices about individual health related behaviours. It may also improve young people's self esteem.​esteem.