5.0 Discussion

Youth are a priority population for sexual health information and services in Canada.4  Region of Waterloo Public Health literature review identified the following youth sub- populations as sexual health service priorities⁵: males (particularly, visible minorities), students who engage in sexual intercourse before the age of 16 (specifically girls), youth living in poor communities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer (LGBTQ) youth, teens with peers who obtain poor grades and engage in risk taking behaviours (drugs and alcohol), and any youth engaging in risk taking behaviours.

The present study showed that the teen sexual health clinic campaign did not have an impact on the number of visits in the post-campaign implementation period or in the propor- tions of visits to the school based- and regular-teen sexual health clinics. However, the findings support important from other teen sexual health service delivery research.^5,6

Specifically, attendance at KFL&A Public Health teen sex- ual health clinics regardless of type of clinic is low for male LDSB students, and once engaged with the teen sexual health clinics, LDSB students will likely return for further sexual health services.

The current study did not consider the impact of potential clustering of students with similar characteristics within schools. Although significant results were not found for the primary outcome measure, it is important to acknowledge for future evaluations that the risk of not addressing clus- tered data in the analysis is that results may appear signifi- cant when in fact they are not. Data interpretation may  also be limited by data abstraction methods that did not account for identification of the total number of visits by each client during the study period. Furthermore, the analysis may have been enhanced by including the total number of clinics held by each clinic location throughout the study period.

Implications for KFL&A Public Health's Sexual Health Team

While the evaluation results indicate that the campaign had no impact on the number of clinic visits, the Sexual Health Team may want to consider targeting specific youth sub- populations. Using the KFL&A Public Health program planning framework tool, the Sex- ual Health Team should develop teen sexual health clinic campaigns targeted at:

• Male youths.
• Grade seven, eight, nine and ten students. If engaged with KFL&A Public Health services early, they may continue to use our services to meet future sexual health needs.