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Bed Sheets and Spreadsheets: Understanding Lebanese Sexual Health

December 8, 2015
Lebanese youth enjoy the ‘liberal atmosphere’ of Downtown Beirut ( Photo by Jordi Cami / Getty Images )

Young Lebanese are exposed to unnecessary risk in their early sex lives because of poor education. Attempts by researchers to collect data on the subject are often thwarted because it remains taboo. But a sexual health clinic in Beirut is moving towards digitizing its clients’ data, anonymously of course, which could very well provide researchers with one of the clearest glimpses yet into this sensitive subject. Diana Abou Abbas is manager at Marsa Sexual Health Centre in Hamra, which provides a variety of services all of which generate data that could be useful for researchers. “Once it’s digital we’ll be able to get studies out of it and get the prevalence and incidents of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), sexual behavior and condom use, for example, amongst certain populations,” says Ms Abbas, stressing that user data will be anonymous. “We want to focus more on research so we can try to advocate later on for sexual reproductive health rights.” It’s difficult to overstate just how precious this kind of data is in Lebanon. Aside from HIV, which falls under the National AIDS Control Program, experts acknowledge there is little to no…


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