Project 422850

Gender transformative sexual health care for youth (15-29 years) remains a pressing issue across Canada. In BC, rates of STIs, sexual violence, and unplanned pregnancies among youth remain alarmingly high, and represent a marker of a range of gender and social inequities and gaps in effective sexual health care. However our understanding of gender-transformative policies and practices that promote or mitigate youth's engagement in sexual health care, and experiences in interacting with sexual health providers remain largely absent. Despite increasing attention to sexual health and calls to move away from a solely individual-level and risk/ deficit-based models both in Canada and globally, there is a surprising dearth of research on gender and intersecting socio-structural factors shaping access and uptake of sexual health care in Canada, or efforts to document and evaluate gender transformative interventions both within and outside health sector on reducting or promoting sexual health inequities. To address these gaps, the Sex and Gender Science Chair in Advancing Gender Transformative Sexual Health Policy & Practice will undertake participatory program of research, integrated knowledge translation and exchange (iKTE), and capacity-building to: 1.Develop novel methodologies, theories, and tools to advance research on gender transformative sexual health policy and practice; 2.Develop novel and integrated KTE strategies to promote gender-transformative sexual health policy and practice; and 3.Foster training and mentorship opportunities for sexual health practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and youth.