STI/HIV knowledge and sexual behaviour: evidence from the 2010 Transition to Adulthood Survey of Greater Jakarta

Anna Reimondos, Australian National University
Iwu D. Utomo, Australian National University
Peter McDonald, Australian National University
Terence H. Hull, Australian National University

This paper examines the sexual behaviours, focusing in particular on the incidence of premarital sex, as well as the level of knowledge of STIs and HIV/AIDS among a sample of young people living in Greater Jakarta. The analysis is based on data on 3,0006 young people aged 20-34 who were surveyed in the 2009/2010 Greater Jakarta Transition to Adulthood Survey conducted in Jakarta, Bekasi and Tangerang. The survey is the first comprehensive survey of transitions to adulthood conducted in Indonesia and is funded by the Australian Research Council, WHO and the National University of Singapore. In the analysis of young people's level of knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS we found that a relatively high proportion, one in seven, had never heard of HIV/AIDS. Knowledge of HIV/AIDS was however strongly related to age and education. Whereas one third of those with primary school education had never heard of HIV/AIDS, the equivalent figure was only 7 % for those with a university degree. The majority of respondents who had heard of HIV/AIDS correctly identified that it could be transmitted by unprotected sex, sharing of needles and from blood transfusions (79-84%). However misconceptions were also prevalent as a significant percentage believed that HIV/AIDS could be transmitted from activities such as kissing and infected person and from mosquito bites.With regards to sexual behaviour we find that 11 per cent of never married respondents and 10 per cent of ever married respondents had had premarital sex. Among the never married respondents, reports of premarital sex differed greatly by gender, with only 5 percent of females reporting experience of sexual intercourse compared to 16 percent of males. Though we speculate that the incidence of premarital sex may be under reported, it is still considerably higher compared to the incidence found from other surveys.