Published in Studies in Family Planning (Vol. 32, No. 4, pps. 339-51), this study evaluates the Entre Nous Jeunes (ENJ) peer-educator programme, which was designed to promote sexually-transmitted infection (STI)/HIV-preventive behaviours in Nkongsamba, Cameroon. The central purpose of the study was to explore how the strategy of using peer education to address reproductive health issues with young Cameroonians worked in practice. In so doing, the study assessed whether the young people exposed to a peer educator gained knowledge and practiced more protective behaviours than did those in the control community and those who were not exposed to ENJ.

As detailed within this report, during the 18-month intervention period, the peer educators were able to reach a large number of young people, specifically those who were sexually experienced and in need of reproductive health information. As the authors explain, “Multivariate analyses indicate that contact with a peer educator is statistically significantly associated with greater spontaneous knowledge of modern contraception, the symptoms of sexually transmitted infections, and greater use of modern contraceptives, including the condom. In the absence of a peer-education programme, current contraceptive use in the intervention community would have been significantly lower.”

Excerpts from the Conclusion section of the document follow:

"This ENJ evaluation study has contributed to an expanding body of research on the assessment of what types of programs are effective at meeting adolescent reproductive health needs. While most program types appeared to have impacts on reproductive health knowledge and attitudes, fewer have demonstrated impacts on reproductive health behaviors. Moreover, only two prior quasi- experimental studies were found that evaluated the impact of peer-based programs on adolescent reproductive health behaviors.

These studies both demonstrated program impacts on behaviors, specifically for in-school populations. The evaluation of the ENJ peer education strategy contributes to these findings by demonstrating behavioral impacts among all youth (in- or out-of-school) who had contact with peer educators.

While this study showed that the ENJ peer-educator strategy was effective at changing adolescent behaviors, there remain a number of outstanding issues that need to be teased out before concrete policy and program recommendations on the use of peer-based strategies can be made. First, this study has demonstrated short-term impacts of an 18-month peer-educator intervention on behaviors. Future studies need to determine whether short-term increases in protective behaviors associated with a peer educator program lead to long-term objectives to reduce unintended pregnancies and STI.

Second, it is necessary to determine whether this type of peer-based strategy can be replicated at a larger scale in multiple communities in Cameroon and have similar impacts as observed in this study. Likewise, it is necessary to replicate this type of program in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond to determine whether comparable impacts are observed."

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