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Data on unsafe sex have remained scarce among adolescents in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). To estimate the prevalence of unsafe sex in LMICs, we conducted secondary data analysis on the Global School-based Student Health Surveys among 244,863 students aged 13\u201317\u00a0years from 68 countries across five World Health Organization regions. The overall prevalence of ever had sex was 16.2%. The highest to lowest regional prevalence estimation of ever had sex was 30.5% (28.9\u201332.1) in the Americas, 28.6% (26.8\u201330.4) in Africa, 10.9% (9.2\u201312.6) in the Eastern Mediterranean, 9.6% (8.8\u201310.5) in South-East Asia, and 8.0% (6.8\u20139.1) in the Western Pacific. The highest prevalence of sexual intercourse before age 14 and practicing sexual intercourse without condom use were 36.5% (34.5\u201338.5) and 32.2% (30.1\u201334.3) in Africa, respectively. Findings suggest that current interventions are inadequate in promoting the uptake of safe sexual behaviors and an urgent intervention is needed.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s10508-024-02861-1","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,18]],"date-time":"2024-04-18T18:02:08Z","timestamp":1713463328000},"page":"2337-2346","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Regional and Country Prevalence Estimates of Unsafe Sex Among Adolescents in 68 Low-Income and Middle-Income Countries"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"53","author":[{"given":"Janni","family":"Leung","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Carmen","family":"Lim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0208-9144","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Habte","family":"Belete","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Caitlin","family":"Mcclure-Thomas","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shaun","family":"Foo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Gary Chung Kai","family":"Chan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,18]]},"reference":[{"issue":"1","key":"2861_CR1","first-page":"2","volume":"5","author":"Z Alimoradi","year":"2017","unstructured":"Alimoradi, Z., Kariman, N., Simbar, M., & Ahmadi, F. 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