An Investigation of Adolescent Health in Vietnam

Despite the fact that adolescents share health risks attendant upon rapid social change Viet Nam has not yet created a division of adolescent health. This paper summarizes results on sex behavior and attitudes of adolescents obtained as part of a larger survey undertaken in 1997 to identify adolescent risk behaviors and attitudes in order to create appropriate interventions. Data were gathered from 1110 students (47.7% male 43.8% female 8.5% unknown) at eight randomly selected schools in Ho Chi Minh City via a pretested self-administered closed-format questionnaire. It was found that 4.7% of males and 0.8% of females reported having had sexual intercourse (but 6.4% preferred not to this question and 3.6% did not respond). However 34.8% of males and 9.6% of females approved of premarital sex. Nearly equal proportions indicated a need to use contraception when engaging in sexual intercourse (48.3%) or had no opinion (45.8%). However 72% said that condoms are necessary to prevent HIV infection and sexually transmitted diseases (26% had no opinion on this subject). These findings reflect both the conservative and the changing values of Viet Nam. The usefulness of the data is compromised because so many respondents chose not to answer specific questions and because the survey involved only in-school youth. It is of interest that only a slight majority of respondents were totally opposed to premarital sex. Traditional values seem more tenacious among female respondents.