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Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is defined by the WHO as giving ‘young people accurate, age-appropriate information about sexuality and their sexual and reproductive health, which is critical for their health and survival’.

CSE is a crucial component of public health programs and aims to equip individuals with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions on their sexual health. Numerous studies have demonstrated that CSE programs reduce the rates of sexual risk behaviours such as number of partners and unprotected intercourse, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and adolescent pregnancy. Current programs across the world vary in their content, effectiveness, and emphasis and despite significant progress in recent years, challenges remain, including high rates of STIs and adolescent pregnancy.

Submission status: Open  |  Submission Deadline: 31st March 2025

Submit your manuscript via the homepage of the journals below and choose Comprehensive Sexuality Education from the drop-down list.

New Content Item

A cross-journal collection between:

Reproductive Health
Contraception and Reproductive Medicine
Harm Reduction Journal
Health Research Policy and Systems
Archives of Public Health
International Journal for Equity in Health 

Collection objectives:

  • Assess the current landscape of CSE programs, including effectiveness and impact.
  • Examine patterns of risky sexual behaviours amongst populations and identify contributing factors.
  • Explore potential interventions and strategies to enhance the delivery and effectiveness of sexuality education programs to mitigate negative outcomes.


Topics of Interest 

  • The effectiveness of CSE programs.
  • Harm reduction approaches to sex and sexuality education, and risky sexual behaviours, including chemsex.
  • The role of healthcare providers, schools, parents, community organisations, social media and influencers in promoting good sexual health
  • Innovative interventions, such as telemedicine, mobile health apps, and community-based programs, to promote sexual health.
  • How economic disparities impact individuals' access to quality sexual health information and resources, leading to inequities in health outcomes. 
  • Disparities in education based on location, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
  • The consequences of cultural differences within countries and globally on the approach to CSE and the associated health outcomes.
  • The impact on CSE delivery of biological changes, such as the shift in age of puberty, and technical evolutions, such as chemical prevention (PreP) in relation to HIV and sex behaviour.
  • Explore the level and appropriateness of research into CSE, and the barriers to ensuring that policy and practice in this area is driven by the research.

For more information on each journal and the collection content that is most suitable, click the links and read the full Aims & Scope. 

Reproductive Health
Editor-in-Chief: Sanni Yaya, PhD, MSc, AdmA, FCIM, MPM, University of Ottawa, Canada
Reproductive Health publishes content on all aspects of human reproduction, including topics such as adolescent health, female fertility, family planning and contraception. The journal is interested in articles discussing the quality and evidence base for CSE programs, as well as key information for fostering good sexual health.

Contraception and Reproductive Medicine
Editor-in-Chief: Donna Shoupe, MD, MBA, University of Southern California, USA
Contraception and Reproductive Medicine promotes the advancement of contraceptive technology and general reproductive medicine particularly in the areas of education, effectiveness, safety and long-term health. The journal is interested in articles exploring the landscape of male and female contraceptives, plus how education of these technologies can be improved.

Harm Reduction Journal
Editor-in-Chief: Nick Crofts, AM, MB, MPH, FAFPHM, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Australia
Harm Reduction Journal publishes research and commentary on programs aiming to reduce the health, social, and economic costs of a behavior without necessarily reducing the behavior itself. This journal is interested in articles examining patterns of sexual behaviors (including chemsex) and the potential harms of such behaviors, as well as articles that explore the nature and effectiveness of CSE programs in reducing risk from sexual behaviors.

Health Research Policy and Systems
Editors-in-Chief: Kathryn Oliver, PhD, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Chigozie Jesse Uneke, MSc, PhD, Ebonyi State University, Nigeria
Health Research Policy and Systems covers all aspects of the organisation and use of health research, including agenda-setting, building health research capacity, and how research as a whole benefits decision makers, practitioners in health and related fields. The journal is interested in articles exploring the level and appropriateness of research into CSE, and the barriers to ensuring that policy and practice in this area is driven by the research.

Archives of Public Health
Editors-in-Chief: Olivier Bruyère, University of Liège, Belgium
Herman Van Oyen, SCIENSANO, Belgium
Brecht Devleesschauwer, SCIENSANO, Belgium
Archives of Public Health is a multi-specialty public health journal, dedicated to publishing sound science that has clear policy implications in the field of population health. The journal welcomes articles on all aspects of CSE programs.

International Journal for Equity in Health 
Editors-in-Chief: Ana Lorena Ruano, PhD, University of Bergen, Norway
Daniel Maceira, PhD, National University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Pablo Gaitán-Rossi, PhD, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico
International Journal for Equity in Health presents evidence relevant to the search for, and attainment of, equity in health across and within countries. The journal is interested in articles discussing disparities in education based on location, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, as well as approaches to diminish such disparities.

Each article submitted to this collection will be reviewed and published by one of the six Journals listed above. All articles will then be collated and shown together on this page.

Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read the submission guidelines for the relevant Journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via the relevant Journal submission system: Choose the journal that is most appropriate for your manuscript, navigate to the Journal's homepage and click Submit Manuscript in the top right. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Comprehensive Sexuality Education" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the Journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the Journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors-in-Chief are acting as Collection Editors for the submissions to their own journals. The Editors declare no competing interests for the Collection. The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which any Editor has competing interests will be handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.

Please check individual journal submission guidelines for available article types and associated criteria.

  1. The high psychological burden of rape, together with complications such as pregnancy and chronic conditions, is associated with an increase in mental disorders. Social cognitive theory (SCT) is an important he...

    Authors: Nasrin Vafaeinejad, Zahra Boroumandfar, Ashraf Kazemi, Hamid Nasiri Dehsorkhi and Sosan Sohrabi
    Citation: Reproductive Health 2024 21:141
    Content type: Study Protocol Published on:

  2. Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is essential in empowering adolescents with the knowledge and confidence to manage their sexual and reproductive health. Despite its recognized benefits, access to quali...

    Authors: Sara Rivenes Lafontan, Felicia Jones and Niru Lama
    Citation: Reproductive Health 2024 21:131
    Content type: Research Published on: