Open Access in JAH
Social Norms Measurement: Catching up With Programs and Moving the Field Forward
To date, there are numerous normative change programs for AYSRH in the field and going to scale [1]. Many of these are doing so, however, with scant evidence of the desired normative change outcomes, resulting largely from the fact that social norms' measurement has lagged behind [2,3]. As programs are developed to shift social norms to improve adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) outcomes, rigorous but practical approaches are needed to identify the social norms that are influencing behaviors, measure changes in social norms, and understand how these changes impact behavioral outcomes.Proposing a Conceptual Framework to Address Social Norms That Influence Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
With 1.8 billion young people aged 10–24 years in the world today, the cohort of adolescents and youth is the largest in history. Concurrently, millions of adolescents are confronting sexual and reproductive health (SRH) challenges, including high rates of unmet need for contraception, unintended pregnancy, and clandestine and unsafe abortion [1]. Social norms—or shared understandings of how oneself and others should behave—can alleviate or exacerbate these challenges. Rapid global changes over the past 25 years have increased the spotlight on the interrelationships between social norms, health, and development [2–4].
