Sexual health education

1. Sexual health education Presented by: Amanda Shelton Kelly Latimer Chelsea Beckett Nicole Beerck

2. Why is sexual health education important? • Sexual health is a crucial component of overall health and well-being • Especially for adolescents • It is a positive part of personal health and healthy living • Youth have a right to the information, motivation/personal insight, and skills necessary to prevent negative sexual health outcomes • Sexually transmitted infections • unplanned pregnancy • Capacity to enhance sexual health • Maintenance of reproductive health • Positive self-image

3. Family influences on adolescent sexuality Evidence suggests that- • Parents provide information that is: • Lacking • Censored • Restricted • Incomplete • Parental communication about sex includes: • Forceful, verbal messages • Indirect verbal messages • Nonverbal messages • 10% of families have on-going conversations about sex

4. Alternative sources of sex information • For example: • In a recent study of 177 sexual health websites, many contained inaccurate information- • 46% of those addressing contraception • 35% of those addressing abortion • More than half (55%) of 7th–12th graders say they have looked up health information online in order to learn more about an issue affecting themselves or someone they know.

5. Sex education programs • Abstinent-Only-Until-Marriage • Abstinent-Centered • Fear-Based • Abstinent-Plus • Abstinent-Based

6. Abstinent-Only • Exclusive teaching purpose maintains that social and psychological health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity • Reinforces that abstinence is the only certain way to avoid unwanted pregnancy, STI’s, and other associated health problems • teaches that sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical side effects • Limits discussion topics: • Abortion • Masturbation • Sexual orientation • Teens who practice abstinence are less likely to be in an emotionally/ physically abusive relationship, drop out of high school, and engage in substance abuse

7. Comprehensive • III. to help young people develop relationships and interpersonal skills • IV. to help young people exercise responsibility regarding sexual relationships, which includes addressing abstinence, pressures to become prematurely involved in sexual intercourse, and the use of contraception and other sexual health measures. • to provide accurate information about human sexuality • to provide an opportunity for young people to develop and understand their values, attitudes, and insights about sexuality

8. Negative Qualities of Abstinence-Only Programs • Federal funding forAO programs blurs the line between church and state and supports a version of morality that poses as publichealth. • AO courses violate free speech. • AO programs are insignificant and of no use to sexually active teens and, by definition, discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender adolescents. • Many AO curricula comprise “false, misleading or distorted information.” • There is no current evidence that AO programs generate the anticipated long-term behavioral results at which they purpose- • as delays in sexual activity and • reductions in unintended pregnancies and STIs • AO programs have an adverse impact, not only on sex education programs, but also on other public health programs

10. Comprehensive Sexuality Education produces Positive Results “Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. And in 2007, a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence.”

11. Which states mandate sex education? Yes No Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming • Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia

12. Sex education policy continued • 20 states + DC mandate both sex and HIV education • A total of 37 states require that sex education include abstinence • 26 stress abstinence • 11 just include abstinence • 18 states + DC require that sex education programs include information on contraception • no state requires that it be stressed • 13 states require that the information presented in sex education classes be medically accurate and factual

13. School health policies and programs Statistics • 39% taught students how to correctly use a condom in a required health education course. • Additionally, public school districts were more likely to require instruction on STI prevention in high schools (87%) than at the elementary and middle school levels (33% and 77%, respectively). • In 2006, 87% of U.S. public and private high schools taught abstinence as the most effective method to avoid pregnancy, HIV and other STDs in a required health education course. • 65% percent of high schools taught about condom efficacy

14. Governmental Related information • In March 2010, Congress created through health care reform a five-year Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) that will. • educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception • prepare them for adulthood by teaching such subjects as • healthy relationships • financial literacy • parent-child communication • decision-making • In December 2009, Congress replaced the Community-Based Abstinence Education Program with a new $114.5 million teen pregnancy prevention program to support evidence-based interventions