DR RINKO KINOSHITA

Dr Kinoshita currently works in La Paz, Bolivia, as the Representative for the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) Bolivia Country Office. She took up this position in August 2020.

Over the past 14 years, she has worked in various offices of UNICEF. Before joining UNFPA, she was the Acting Senior Partnerships Advisor for UNICEF’s (United Nations Children’s Fund) regional office for West and Central Africa. In this capacity, she has supported UNICEF’s 24 country offices with partnerships (public/private sectors) and contributed to the mobilisation of over 250 million USD for the COVID-19 response. She started her career with the UN as Planning Specialist for UNICEF’s office in Kinshasa, The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2006 and subsequently transferred to itsEasternZonalOffice(basedinGoma,DRC) as the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist.

SheholdsaBScinNursingandMidwiferyfrom Chiba University (Japan), a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of North Carolina (USA), and an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK). She graduated with a PhD in Public Health, focused on Adolescents’Sexual and Reproductive Health from the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) in April 2023. Despite the progress made towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), gender inequality is among the long-standing social issues that must be tackled. Improved Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH), combined with strategies for gender equity, can accelerate the achievement of the SDGs, especially

Goals 3 (Good health and well-being), 4 (Quality Education) and 5 (Gender equality).

Rinko Kinashita’s PhD research targeted early adolescents (EAs) aged between 10 and 14 years, who account for half of the total 1,2 billion adolescents worldwide. Many EAs experience puberty and social and cognitive shifts. Furthermore, this is a period when gender norms are shaped quickly, through gender socialisation. Unequal gender norms may negatively affect Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health(ASRH)outcomes.

Given a paucity of evidence, this study identified key factors influencing the process of constructing gender norms among EAs, using the socio-ecological model. It explored how unequal gender norms might influence EA’s sexual and romantic relationships; knowledge of HIV and pregnancy prevention; exposure to peer violence, intimate partner violence (IPV), adverse childhood events (ACEs);anddepressionsymptoms.

The findings also revealed key risk or protective factors that may affect ASRH issues, which will significantly contribute to designing age-specific, culturally tailored programmes for EAs of high vulnerabilities in urban impoverished communities. Given the dynamic nature of the gender norm constructs, there is a crucial need to collect longitudinal data from EAs, and triangulation with qualitativedata.