The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity Among Youth. April 8, 2. 00. 2 . Abstinence education programs for youth have been proven to be effective in reducing early sexual activity. Abstinence programs also can provide the foundation for personal responsibility and enduring marital commitment. Therefore, they are vitally important to efforts aimed at reducing out- of- wedlock childbearing among young adult women, improving child well- being, and increasing adult happiness over the long term. Washington policymakers should be aware of the consequences of early sexual activity, the undesirable contents of conventional . In particular, policymakers should understand that: Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including incurable viral infections, have reached epidemic proportions. Annually, 3 million teenagers contract STDs; STDs afflict roughly one in four teens who are sexually active. Early sexual activity has multiple negative consequences for young people. Research shows that young people who become sexually active are not only vulnerable to STDs, but also likely to experience emotional and psychological injuries, subsequent marital difficulties, and involvement in other high- risk behaviors. Instead, such programs strongly promote condom use and implicitly condone sexual activity among teens. Nearly all such programs contain material and messages that would be alarming and offensive to the overwhelming majority of parents. Despite claims to the contrary, there are 1. Moreover, real abstinence education is a fairly young field; thus, the number of evaluations of abstinence programs at present is somewhat limited. Why Don’t We Have More Non-Abstinence Programs? Posted August 26, 2014 in Addiction Treatment Methods by Adi. Why don’t we have more moderation treatment programs? Some experts claim that while total abstinence works best for 'true alcoholics,' moderation may be more effective for 'problem drinkers.' But is reality ever so simple?
In the near future, many additional evaluations that demonstrate the effectiveness of abstinence education will become available. Consequences of Early Sexual Activity. Young people who become sexually active enter an arena of high- risk behavior that leads to physical and emotional damage. Each year, influenced by a combination of a youthful assumption of invincibility and a lack of guidance (or misguidance and misleading information), millions of teens ignore those risks and suffer the consequences. Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The nation is experiencing an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases that is steadily expanding. In the 1. 96. 0s, the beginning of the . Today, there are more than 2. STDs, infecting an average of more than 1. Other common viral STDs are the Human Papillomavirus (HPV)- -the leading viral STD, with 5. A review of the scientific literature reveals that, on average, condoms failed to prevent the transmission of the HIV virus- -which causes the immune deficiency syndrome known as AIDS- -between 1. Many young girls report experiencing regret or guilt after their initial sexual experience. In the words of one psychiatrist who recalls the effects of her own sexual experimentation in her teens, . I never imagined I'd pay so dearly and for so long. Those who do become infected with a disease suffer emotional as well as physical effects. Fears regarding the course the disease are coupled with a loss of self- esteem and self- confidence. In a survey by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, 8. Sexual relationships among teenagers are fleeting and unstable, and broken intimate relationships can have serious long- term developmental effects. A series of broken intimate relationships can undermine an individual's capacity to enter into a committed, loving marital relationship. In general, individuals who engage in premarital sexual activity are 5. In the words of one gynecologist and fertility specialist, . This is more than shock or even depression. It impacts every level of their lives, including their marriage. Among girls in this same age cohort, those who are sexually active are seven times more likely to smoke and 1. Research by the Alan Guttmacher Institute likewise finds a correlation between risk behaviors among adolescents and sexual activity; for example, teenagers who use alcohol, tobacco, and/or marijuana regularly are more likely to be sexually active. Only 1. 4 percent of these births occur to women under the age of 1. Most occur to women in their early twenties. Out- of- wedlock childbearing is, thus, not the result of teenagers' lack of knowledge about birth control or a lack of availability of birth control. Rather, it is part of a crisis in the relationships of young adult men and women. Out- of- wedlock childbearing, in most cases, occurs because young adult men and women are unable to develop committed, loving marital relationships. Abstinence programs, therefore, which focus on developing loving and enduring relationships and preparation for successful marriages, are an essential first step in reducing future levels of out- of- wedlock births. The Silent Scandal: Promoting Teen Sex. With millions of dollars in sex- education programs at stake, it is not surprising that the groups that have previously dominated the arena have taken action to block the growing movement to abstinence- only education. Such organizations, including the Sexuality Information and education Council of the United States (SEICUS), Planned Parenthood, and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), have been prime supporters of . Clearly, the caveat that says . Guidelines developed by SEICUS, for example, include teaching children aged five through eight about masturbation and teaching youths aged 9 through 1. Not only do such activities carry their own risks for youth, but they are also likely to increase the incidence of sexual intercourse. In recent years, parental support for real abstinence education has grown. Because of this, many traditional safe- sex programs now take to calling themselves . In reality, there is little abstinence training in . Instead, these programs are thinly disguised efforts to promote condom use. The actual content of most . For example, such programs typically have condom use exercises in which middle school students practice unrolling condoms on cucumbers or dildoes. Such criticism is erroneous. There are currently 1. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Dr. Michael Resnick and others entitled . The study compared students who had taken a formal pledge of virginity with students who had not taken a pledge but were otherwise identical in terms of race, income, school performance, degree of religiousness, and other social and demographic factors. Based on this analysis, the authors discovered that the level of sexual activity among students who had taken a formal pledge of virginity was one- fourth the level of that of their counterparts who had not taken a pledge. Overall, nearly 1. Not Me, Not Now. Not Me, Not Now is a community- wide abstinence intervention targeted to 9- to 1. Monroe County, New York, which includes the city of Rochester. The Not Me, Not Now program devised a mass communications strategy to promote the abstinence message through paid TV and radio advertising, billboards, posters distributed in schools, educational materials for parents, an interactive Web site, and educational sessions in school and community settings. The program sought to communicate five themes: raising awareness of the problem of teen pregnancy, increasing an understanding of the negative consequences of teen pregnancy, developing resistance to peer pressure, promoting parent- child communication, and promoting abstinence among teens. Not Me, Not Now was effective in reaching early teen listeners, with some 9. Not Me, Not Now ad. During the intervention period, the program achieved a statistically significant positive shift in attitudes among pre- teens and early teens in the county. The sexual activity rate of 1. Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Finally, the pregnancy rate for girls aged 1. Monroe County fell by a statistically significant amount, from 6. The teen pregnancy rate fell more rapidly in Monroe County than in comparison counties and in upstate New York in general, and the difference in the rate of decrease was statistically significant. Operation Keepsake is an abstinence program for 1. Cleveland, Ohio. Some 7. Hispanic. An evaluation of the program in 2. In addition, the program reduced by about one- fifth the rate of current sexual activity among those with prior sexual experience. Abstinence by Choice operates in 2. Little Rock area of Arkansas. The program targets 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students and reaches about 4,0. A recent evaluation, involving a sample of nearly 1,0. Moreover, the program reduced the sexual activity rates of girls by approximately 4. A 2. 00. 1 evaluation of the effectiveness of the virginity pledge movement using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health finds that virginity pledge programs are highly effective in helping adolescents to delay sexual activity. According to the authors of the study: Adolescents who pledge, controlling for all of the usual characteristics of adolescents and their social contexts that are associated with the transition to sex, are much less likely than adolescents who do not pledge, to have intercourse. The delay effect is substantial and robust. Pledging delays intercourse for a long time. When taking a virginity pledge is combined with strong parental disapproval of sexual activity, the probability of initiation of sexual activity is reduced by 7. Teen Aid and Sex Respect. An evaluation of the Teen Aid and Sex Respect abstinence programs in three school districts in Utah showed that both programs were effective among the students who were at the greatest risk of initiating sexual activity. Approximately 7,0. To determine the effects of the programs, students in schools with the abstinence programs were compared with students in similar control schools within the same school district. Statistical adjustments were applied to further control for any initial differences between program participants and control students.
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