This evaluation examines the impact, over a 1-year period (2004-2005), of "Know Yourself", an adolescent reproductive health (ARH) programme developed for Bangladeshi youth by the Health Communication Partnership (HCP), with funding from United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-Dhaka and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)-Dhaka. Specifically, HCP's Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) developed an interactive multi-media toolkit to guide non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in conducting community-based workshops. The toolkit, bearing the logo "Nijeke Jano" ("Know Yourself") consists of a series of 4 educational and entertaining videos, 4 accompanying facilitator's guides, question and answer booklets, and reproductive-health-related comic books. The workshops focused on the changes and challenges adolescents face during and after puberty; participants engaged in a series of group exercises and discussions and watched videos to promote their knowledge and life skills.

Two cross-sectional surveys - one in March 2004, the other in July 2005 - were carried out, and involved interviewing a representative sample of adolescents aged 10-19 in 3 intervention and 3 comparison areas. To account for pre-existing differences identified between intervention and comparison samples in the initial surveys, the analysis compared the trends in intervention areas to the those in the comparison areas. "While it is possible that the initial gaps between the intervention and comparison areas reflected different trends in the two areas, the trends in the comparison areas were used to estimate the expected trends in intervention areas - that is, the changes that would have occurred without the "Know Yourself" program activities." The figures highlighted above indicate not only the observed trends, but also the expected trends for the intervention areas. According to researchers, "The difference between the two trends can be attributed to the intervention."

A total of 3,360 adolescent boys and girls attended workshops during the 1-year intervention, and a total of 4,500 booklets and over 1,000 comic books were distributed to the adolescent participants and their parents/teachers.

A summary index measured respondents' knowledge of a range of reproductive health topics, including adolescence, pregnancy, contraception, maternal health, and HIV/AIDS. While knowledge of reproductive health increased significantly in the comparison areas, there was an even greater increase in knowledge among adolescents in the intervention areas. (A figure illustrates specific findings; the difference between the expected and the actual trend lines illustrate this significantly greater increase observed in intervention areas (p<.05).)

Researchers created an index to measure adolescents' perceptions of the social norms within their peer group regarding premarital and higher-risk sexual behaviour; adolescents' perceptions of their peers' attitudes and behaviours regarding safer sexual behaviors became significantly more favourable between 2004 and 2005 in the intervention areas (p<.05), while remaining unchanged in the comparison areas.

The percent of unmarried males reporting ever having sex decreased significantly in the intervention areas, dropping from 22% in 2004 to 14% in 2005 (p<.05). In contrast, the proportion of unmarried males in the comparison areas who reported ever having sex did not change significantly over time, with 13.5% ever having sex in 2004 and 17% ever having sex in 2005.

The programme has grown to include radio and TV magazine programmes, a TV variety show with mini-drama for youth, an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, and a national campaign; a larger impact evaluation is planned for 2007 which will measure effects of the mass media programme and toolkit implementation combined.