Progress towards sustainable development goals related to sexual health

Achieving the sexual health components of sexual and reproductive health and rights as outlined in the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is integral to overall physical and mental well-being and a core part of universal health coverage. However, tracking national and global progress towards advancing the sexual health and rights of people is challenging because of the paucity of indicators to examine many of its components. To assess the state of sexual health in populations, determine service provision needs, evaluate the effectiveness of health system interventions and monitor progress in optimizing health, a comprehensive set of indicators is needed to cover every component of sexual health. Without comparable global indicators for each component of sexual health across the individual, health systems and policy levels, and disaggregated across subgroups including all genders, there is a considerable lack of insight into people's sexual health needs and progress towards meeting those needs. This article explores the availability of global indicators for the different components of sexual health by analysing two key sources: the global indicator framework of the SDGs and the indicator index of the Global Health Observatory. We summarize the indicators for each component of sexual health using the Guttmacher-<i>Lancet</i> Commission framework, highlighting gaps in current indicators, and recommend areas where additional indicators are needed along with strategies on how to improve data availability, quality and inclusiveness.