Keywords: Adolescence; Clinicians; Comprehensive sexuality education; Medical professionals; Sexual and reproductive health.
Comprehensive sexuality education is a program for adolescents and youth that exists at the intersection of health and education. It provides young people with skills, knowledge, and attitudes to achieve healthy, respectful relationships and reach their optimal life and reproductive goals. This includes reducing the risk of unwanted pregnancy, exposure to sexual violence, and sexually transmitted infections. It also enables completion of schooling and improves the ability to find paid work, enhancing a young person’s prospects. CSE is embedded within the basic human right to education, health, and well-being. The goal is for all youth to have access to CSE to reach their full potential. However, there are many barriers to implementing CSE, such as lack of resources, training, and effective policies. Physicians are an untapped resource in CSE implementation. Pathways for physicians to enter key public-policy roles are not well-established and need further development. For physicians to have an impact to effect greater access and implementation of school-based CSE, they need to i) expand their medical training to better prepare them to address clinical problems, inform policy and train future generations; ii) encourage research consortiums worldwide to find CSE solutions for underrepresented communities; and iii) better advocate for CSE when facing policies that could negatively affect youth. Overcoming these barriers and leveraging health providers beyond the clinical space has the potential to deliver significant population benefits for policy and practice and can help build capacity in CSE.