Looking Ahead

As a health care provider who works within the realm of sexual health, I would like to dig into the current state of sexual health education in elementary, secondary and post-secondary education and discuss those impacts. I would also like to look at the link between comprehensive sexual health education and perpetuating misinformation and how these contribute to stigma related to gender diversity, contraception, abortion and STI’s/HIV. My rationale for choosing this topic is to better understand root causes of stigma and to discuss the interplay between education and misinformation.

I have a good understanding of these issues anecdotally as we see the impact of poor sexual health education daily in our clinics when speaking to clients who have been uninformed or misinformed. I am also seeing the impacts of intolerance, stigma and misinformation in Ontario, Canada and globally as we see a consistent rhetoric that is working to erode rights and freedoms of marginalized groups as it relates to sexual and reproductive health. This alarming trend is at least in part due to lack of education and perpetuation of misinformation as it relates to sexual health.

I do expect to face some challenges in collecting good data as it relates to how sexual health information is being or not being implemented across the varying levels of education in Ontario. I am choosing to focus where possible, on my home province for 2 reasons: 1 – I feel I have the best understanding of the levels of education here and how education is structured, and 2 – I feel that I have the best understanding of what we are seeing here in Ontario as it relates to impacts.

My sexual health clinics program is currently undertaking the implementation of the 2SLGTBQI+ Health Equity Best Practice Guideline (BPG) which was developed by the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. One of the BPG recommendations speaks to the importance of comprehensive, stigma-reducing sexual health education. Our gap analysis for the BPG implementation identify this as a barrier area and one that we don’t fully understand how we can impact. I feel that taking on this topic will aid me in gaining a more research backed understanding of this issue, which may assist in advocacy efforts provincially as it relates to sexual health education and assist with our BPG work.