Identifying policy implementation gaps to address the intersecting burdens of mental health challenges and adolescent pregnancy in Peru

 

Despite significant policy efforts to improve sexual and reproductive health services and mental health services, Peru, like other Latin American countries, has a high prevalence of both adolescent pregnancy and mental health problems, especially among female adolescents. This project aims to identify the extent to which public policies designed to address the sexual and reproductive health and mental health needs of adolescent girls are achieving their goals and to validate an intervention to improve these policies.

This project will promote dialogue between civil society and governmental actors to improve public policies. It will undertake policy analysis, analysis of adolescent expectations of health services, analysis of the quality of sexual and reproductive and mental health services provided to adolescents, training of health workers and knowledge mobilization. Data will be collected in two primary health-care networks in the districts of San Juan de Lurigancho in Lima and Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon. The project will focus on female adolescents from the poorest populations and, in particular, on two groups of vulnerable adolescents: Indigenous people and Venezuelan migrants.

This project is part of a second cohort of research projects in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East and North Africa to support research on the understudied area of the interface between sexual, reproductive and maternal health and mental health.