The Role and Challenges of Faculty in Reproductive Health Promotion: A Conceptual Paper of Interventions Addressing Student Sexual Risk Behavior

Abstract

Abstract. University students in emerging adulthood face heightened vulnerability to risky sexual behaviours due to increasing independence, social exploration, and ongoing negotiation of norms. Prevailing campus approaches—passive clinical services and generic health promotion—are insufficient to address multi-level determinants and the persistent knowledge-to-action gap. The objectives of this concept paper is to delineate the roles and challenges of faculties in advancing students’ sexual and reproductive health within Indonesia’s religious-cultural context, and to propose a socio-ecologically grounded framework for a safe, inclusive, and rights-based campus. Conceptual synthesis drawing on the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM), in loco parentis/duty of care, and Indonesian higher-education/communal norms. Evidence and policies were mapped across five levels (individual, relational, organizational, community, policy) to specify mediating mechanisms and moderating conditions, and to derive a multilayered intervention agenda. Key mediators include confidentiality, trust, a non-stigmatizing organizational climate, and policy–curriculum–service coherence. Moderators comprise generation gaps, moral construction/moral panic, staff capacity, and privacy–autonomy concerns. The framework specifies integrated, multilayered actions: skills-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE); confidential, youth-friendly counseling; peer support; sexual-violence prevention and referral SOP’s; staff training; and strategic collaboration with community services and leaders. Faculties can operationalize a Healthy University model by aligning governance, curricula, and services to cultivate a safe, inclusive, rights-based ecosystem for SRH. A staged empirical agenda—qualitative, participatory, comparative, and longitudinal evaluative studies—is proposed to test, refine, and scale the framework in Indonesian universities.