What is sexual wellbeing and why does it matter for public health?

If you need an accessible version of this item, please submit a remediation request.
Date
2021-08
Language
English
Embargo Lift Date
Committee Members
Degree
Degree Year
Department
Grantor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Found At
Elsevier
Abstract

Sexual health has provided a guiding framework for addressing sexuality in public health for several decades. Although the WHO definition of sexual health is revolutionary in acknowledging positive sexuality, public health approaches remain focused on risk and adverse outcomes. The long-standing conflation of sexual health and sexual wellbeing has affected our ability to address everyday sexual issues. This Viewpoint provides a way forward to resolve this impasse. We propose sexual wellbeing as a distinct and revolutionary concept that can be operationalised as a seven-domain model. We situate sexual wellbeing alongside sexual health, sexual justice, and sexual pleasure as one of four pillars of public health enquiry. We argue that sexual wellbeing is imperative to public health as a marker of health equity, a meaningful population indicator of wellbeing, a means to capture population trends distinct from sexual health, and an opportunity to refocus the ethics, form, and practices of public health.

Description
item.page.description.tableofcontents
item.page.relation.haspart
Cite As
Mitchell, K. R., Lewis, R., O’Sullivan, L. F., & Fortenberry, J. D. (2021). What is sexual wellbeing and why does it matter for public health? The Lancet. Public Health, 6(8), e608–e613. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00099-2
ISSN
Publisher
Series/Report
Sponsorship
Major
Extent
Identifier
Relation
Journal
The Lancet. Public Health
Source
Publisher
Alternative Title
Type
Article
Number
Volume
Conference Dates
Conference Host
Conference Location
Conference Name
Conference Panel
Conference Secretariat Location
Version
Final published version
Full Text Available at
This item is under embargo {{howLong}}