Peer-reviewed article
Mapping the evidence on interventions that mitigate the health, educational, social and economic impacts of child marriage and address the needs of child brides: a systematic scoping review
Shatha Elnakib, Ahmed K. Ali, Kate Mieth, Venkatraman Chandra‐Mouli ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This systematic scoping review identified 34 projects supporting child brides, focusing primarily on sexual and reproductive health knowledge and behaviours through education, counselling and service linkages. Most interventions were health-focused, with very few addressing education or economic needs. The review found that while interventions for child brides have increased over time, there remain significant gaps in evidence regarding mental health support, sexual health, and economic independence for this vulnerable population.
Key points
- Most of the 34 included projects focused on improving sexual and reproductive health knowledge and behaviours among child brides
- Interventions often combined SRH education, counselling and information provision with linkages to health services
- Some interventions were health facility-based to improve provider responsiveness to child brides' needs
- Very few interventions included economic components, and only three focused on improving educational outcomes
- Media-based interventions were rarely described despite their popularity with adolescents, and there are gaps in evidence for mental health and economic independence support
Limitations
This is a scoping review mapping the landscape of existing interventions rather than evaluating their effectiveness; the review does not assess the quality or actual outcomes of the identified projects. The search was limited to January 2022 and does not include more recent evidence.
Abstract
More than 650 million women alive today were married as children. Relative to efforts to prevent child marriage, efforts to support child brides have received much less attention. This review set out to map and describe interventions that support child brides. We performed a scoping review using seven electronic databases coupled with a grey literature search in January 2022. Data were extracted using a piloted extraction tool and findings were reported in narrative synthesis. A total of 34 projects were included in our review. Most projects focused on improving sexual and reproductive health (SRH) knowledge and behaviours among child brides, which was often achieved through a combination of SRH education, counselling and information provision, along with linkages to SRH services. Some interventions were health facility-based and aimed at improving responsiveness of health service providers to the needs of child brides. Very few described economic interventions as one component of a broader health intervention, and only three interventions focused on improving girls' educational outcomes. We also note the paucity of media-based interventions, despite their popularity among adolescents. Over time, interventions addressing the needs of child brides have increased, but the preponderance of evidence has focused on SRH interventions, with interventions that couple education with adolescent-friendly health services demonstrating promise. Interventions addressing other areas of health and social wellbeing of this group, such as mental health, sexual health, and economic independence, have been overlooked in comparison. The review highlights the need for additional empirical evidence on what works to support child brides.