World Bank Report: Unsafe Sex Threaten Global Health

A new World Bank report warns that risky behaviors –smoking, using illicit drugs, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets, and unsafe sex— are increasing globally  and pose a growing threat to the health of individuals, particularly in developing countries. The report looks at how individual choices that lead to these behaviors are formed and reviews the effectiveness of interventions such as legislation, taxation, behavioral change campaigns, and cash transfers to combat them.

The Report, Risking your Health: Causes, Consequences and Interventions to Prevent Risky Behaviors, concludes that legislation and taxation, for example, tend to be effective, especially when combined with strong enforcement mechanisms. Cash transfers also have proven to be promising in some settings. Behavior change campaigns, such as school-based sex education and calorie-labeling laws, are often less effective on their own, unless they are complemented with broader risk behavior change programs.

“Risky behaviors not only endanger an individual’s health and reduce life expectancy, they often impose consequences on others,” said Damien de Walque, Senior Economist in the World Bank’s research department and principal editor of the report. “The health consequences and monetary costs of risky behaviors to individuals, their families, and society as a whole are staggering and justify public interventions.”

The report finds that despite recent progress in prevention and treatment, the HIV/AIDS epidemic —one of the most devastating consequences of risky sex— remains a heavy burden in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in its southern cone where between 11 and 26 percent of all adults are HIV positive.

Drug and alcohol abuse have been relatively stable over the past decade, but smoking and obesity linked to unhealthy diets are on the rise in many developing countries and have the potential to substantially increase mortality and morbidity. Close to 20 percent of the world’s adult population smoke cigarettes and smoking causes more than 15 percent of deaths among men and 7 percent among women globally. While smoking prevalence is decreasing in the developed world, it is on the rise in many developing countries.

For copies of the “Risking your Health” report go to: www.worldbank.org/health