Sexual health literacy and education programs for culturally and linguistically diverse young people living in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom: a scoping review of content evaluations.
Wagstaff R, Daken K, et al. • Health education research • 2025
No academic or grey literature reports were identified that described the assessment of sexual health literacy program content or resources targeting young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Key Findings
Results
No academic or grey literature reports were found that described the assessment of sexual health literacy program content or resources targeting young people from CALD backgrounds.
The scoping review covered both academic literature and reports from government and not-for-profit organizations across four countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
These four countries were selected due to their similar healthcare systems, immigration patterns, and socioeconomic status.
Organizations and authors were contacted for further details of program content assessment with little success.
The finding indicates 'a gap in the literature and lack of program evaluation or processes for updating of program content.'
Background
Sexual health programs for CALD young people are commonly developed using established health behaviour models and community involvement models.
There is described as 'an abundance of literature' indicating this pattern of program development.
Despite the existence of program development frameworks, little evidence exists on the processes or standards used to evaluate program effectiveness.
Little evidence exists on processes used to update content to remain relevant and appealing to CALD young people.
Background
Young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds represent an important priority community for enhancing sexual and reproductive health.
The review was scoped to four countries with similar healthcare systems, immigration patterns, and socioeconomic status: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
The review targeted programs specifically designed to improve sexual health literacy (SHL) for young people from CALD backgrounds.
The focus on CALD young people is framed as addressing a 'key priority community' for sexual and reproductive health improvement.
Results
The scoping review identified a gap in both academic and grey literature regarding evaluation of sexual health literacy program content currency and effectiveness for CALD young people.
The review encompassed both peer-reviewed academic literature and grey literature (government and not-for-profit organization reports).
Direct outreach to organizations and authors to obtain further details about program content assessment was conducted but yielded little success.
The review concludes with recommendations regarding 'advancing future research and enhancing program content evaluation.'
What This Means
This research conducted a broad review of scientific studies and reports from government and non-profit organizations across Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom to find out whether sexual health education programs designed for young people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds are being properly evaluated and kept up to date. The researchers searched both published academic literature and grey literature (non-peer-reviewed reports from organizations) and also directly contacted relevant organizations and researchers for additional information.
The most striking finding was that the researchers could find no examples — in either academic or grey literature — of programs that described how their sexual health literacy content was assessed for effectiveness or updated to stay current and relevant for CALD young people. Even when organizations and authors were contacted directly, little additional information could be obtained. This represents a significant gap, given that programs for this population are known to be developed and do exist.
This research suggests that while sexual health programs for culturally and linguistically diverse young people are being created, there is a missing step: rigorous, documented evaluation of whether the content actually works and stays relevant over time. This matters because without evaluation processes, programs may become outdated or ineffective without anyone knowing. The authors call for future research to develop and document better standards for assessing and updating the content of these programs, which could ultimately lead to improved sexual and reproductive health outcomes for CALD young people.
Wagstaff R, Daken K, Mullens A, Moran C, Gu Z, Alemu Y, et al.. (2025). Sexual health literacy and education programs for culturally and linguistically diverse young people living in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom: a scoping review of content evaluations.. Health education research. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyaf056