The Effect of State-Level Sex Education Policies on Youth Sexual Behaviors
| Autor: | Danielle N. Atkins, W. David Bradford |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
050103 clinical psychology
medicine.medical_specialty media_common.quotation_subject Comprehensive sex education Population Human sexuality Affect (psychology) 03 medical and health sciences Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Political science medicine Scientific consensus 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences education General Psychology media_common education.field_of_study 030505 public health Public health 05 social sciences Abstinence Mandate 0305 other medical science Psychology Social psychology Unintended pregnancy Demography |
| Zdroj: | Archives of Sexual Behavior. 50:2321-2333 |
| ISSN: | 1573-2800 0004-0002 |
| Popis: | Two types of sex education are generally offered in the U.S. abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education. There is no clear scientific consensus over which approach minimizes the risk of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases for youth. While there have been many studies of specific programs in clinical or quasi-experimental settings, there are very few evaluations of how state-level sex education policies affect the youth population. We estimate the impact of various state-level sex education policies on youth sexual activity and contraceptive use using data from four waves of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System from 39 states. We found that states that require sexuality (sex and/or HIV/STD) education and contraceptive content or states that mandate education but leave the actual content up to local districts have lower rates of sexually active youth and higher rates of contraception use when youth are sexually active. States that require sexuality education and require abstinence content increase the rate at which youth are sexually active, and youth in those states are less likely to use hormonal birth control if they are sexually active. In conclusion, we found that state policies regarding sex and HIV/STD education had statistically significant effects that are meaningful in magnitude from a public health perspective. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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