By lizzhart
Thus far we've been on 4 Thai government hospital tours, 1 private hospitals, 2 community home stays, 1 interview of a sex worker, and a tour of the Laos health care system. All these visits and tours have given a broad understanding of Thailand social issues and burden of disease. Thailand faces an interesting health burden with a triple threat of communicable disease, non communicable disease, and traffic accidents. Additionally, they have to balance being a middle income country with the pressures and stressors of increasing business and media presence. In the absence of a strong breast feeding campaign, Thailand and Laos had a major problem in which mothers were feeding their babies sweetened condensed milk and coffee creamer instead of baby formula. There were no regulations on the advertisements for these products, so mothers were mislead by logos and images that resembled baby formula ads. These kind of mix ups and mis-communications are common in developing countries and require strong health promotion.
The issue I'm most interested in right now is the lack of sex education in Thailand and the high rates of teen pregnancy. Despite most other health indicating statistics improving in thailand, teen pregnancy had increased in the last 10 years. There are a lot of social and cultural factors that compound the issue of teen pregnancy. In Thailand, if a teen in a public high school becomes pregnant she is expelled from school. She can pay to enroll in a special school for mothers but cannot continue her education at a normal high school. Many don't go to the alternative school and their education ends prematurely. This limits their job opportunities and chances of improving their socioeconomic status.
Part if the issue is that thailand only recently started implementing sex education in their public schools. Sex education starts around 5th grade but is limited by the ministry of education to just 8 hours a year. Also, the classes take a biological approach and ignore the emotional and relationship aspects of sex. While Thailand very liberal in some ways, such as their healthcare system, in other ways they can be very conservative. Sex education has typically only been for married couples and there still exists a cultural stigma against teaching teens about sex.
It has been hard to find out any information about sex education and teen pregnancy. Academic resources are limited and no health care provider seems to want to talk about it when we visit hospitals and clinics. It's going to require a lot if digging to write my research paper. However, if I can get a better understanding if the systems and stigmas that impact the issue, it will really help me if I choose to make my community project related to Thai teen pregnancy rates. I hope that in the next few weeks I can get some real answers on the situation and create a strong research background for potential projects and interventions in the communities.