This section covers the body and reproduction: sexually transmitted infections, contraception, assisted reproduction, pregnancy, mental health and addiction. Every subject carries a page for each country, because access to care is nowhere the same.
Contraception, STIs, mental health, addictions: health is part of life as a couple, and a professional remains the right person to ask. Photo : Tama998, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Because it turns up at every stage, and almost always at the worst moment. From the first
relationships come contraception and sexually transmitted infections. When starting a family come
fertility, assisted reproduction, pregnancy and abortion. And when a couple goes through a hard stretch,
mental health and addiction often decide what holds and what breaks.
These are not abstract medical subjects: they are decisions taken by two people, with consequences for
both. A badly chosen contraceptive, a test put off, a dependence nobody mentions, erectile difficulty
left to settle in — each of those damages a relationship long before it damages a body.
Every subject carries a page for each country, because the age of access, the funding, the legal time
limits and the emergency numbers change completely from one country to the next, while the biology does
not.
There is a simple reason for that distinction. The biology of an infection, the mechanism
of a contraceptive or the way sleep works are identical from one country to the next. The age
at which contraception can be obtained without parental consent, whether a test is funded, the
legal time limits for abortion or the emergency numbers change
completely. Mixing the two produces articles that are wrong for most readers — which is why
they are kept apart.
How to read these pages
Figures are dated and sourced. Where an effectiveness rate, a delay or a prevalence is
given, it comes from current international guidance, not from an average found online.
The gap between theory and practice is stated. For contraception in particular, the
difference between perfect use and typical use is what actually matters, and it is always given.
A page is not a consultation. It is there so you arrive informed, ask the right
questions, and recognise what warrants seeing someone without delay.
Official links sit at the foot of every page, country by country: health authorities,
helplines, emergency numbers.
Every page in this section
The full structure of Health — sub-sections, pages, sub-pages and country pages — is on the site map, which lays out the whole site the same way.
