African Animal Genetics (Agri/Animal Science) | 18 August 2000
School-Based Health Education Campaigns for Adolescent Girls in Sierra Leone: A Three-Year Impact and Adoption Study
K, a, r, a, m, o, h, S, h, e, r, i, f, f, ,, A, b, u, b, a, k, a, r, J, a, l, l, o, h
Abstract
Adolescent girls in Sierra Leone face unique health challenges related to nutrition, reproductive health, and mental well-being. School-based health education campaigns have been proposed as a promising intervention for addressing these issues. A mixed-methods approach will be employed, including baseline surveys, midline assessments, post-intervention evaluations, and interviews with stakeholders. Data collection will use standardised tools for consistency across schools and time points. The findings suggest that the school-based health education campaigns led to a significant increase in knowledge about reproductive health (p<0.05) among adolescent girls compared to baseline levels. This study provides preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of school-based health education campaigns in improving health literacy and behaviors among adolescent girls in Sierra Leone. Based on these findings, it is recommended that schools continue and expand their health education programmes, while also involving parents and community leaders to ensure long-term impact. Treatment effect was estimated with $\text{logit}(p<em>i)=\beta</em>0+\beta^\top X_i$, and uncertainty reported using confidence-interval based inference.