Costa Rica

Barriers to sexual healthcare in a resource poor tourist area in Atlantic Costa Rica

The goal of the partnership is to increase research capacity for collaborations on global health research related to social inequities in tourist communities in Costa Rica, with the aim towards influencing policy in Costa Rica where no national strategy for sexual health is in place. The main activities to be supported by this grant are:

1. a pilot study in a tourist Afro-Caribbean community in Atlantic Costa Rica to explore barriers to sexual healthcare for local residents impacted by sex tourism; and
2. to develop a larger scale multi-year research proposal with support from international researchers at the University of Manitoba with expertise in global health and human rights through a seven-day forum that will include knowledge exchange and the consolidation of an emerging international research network.

The pilot study will use rapid assessment procedures to ascertain barriers to access to an alternative gynaecological clinic in the community of Puerto Viejo, in particular why local men at risk of sexually transmitted infections and HIV due to their sexual exchanges with tourists are not utilizing the local sexual health provisions. We will use the findings to create messaging in the community to promote sexual health, and to compare the situation in this rural area to other rural tourist communities in Costa Rica where sexual exchanges between tourists and locals have resulted in particular sexual healthcare needs but where healthcare provisions are not as lacking as they are in the Atlantic region.