|
 “The declines in formal sex education we observed since 2006 are
distressing, but unfortunately are part of a longer term retreat
from sex education, especially instruction about birth control
methods,” said lead study author Laura Duberstein Lindberg of The
Guttmacher Institute in New York.
“For example, in 1995 more than four out of five teens were taught
about birth control—in the most recent data this is only about
half,” she said.
The researchers used interviews taken from nationwide household
surveys administered continuously between 2006 and 2010 and between
2011 and 2013, focusing on respondents aged 15 to 19 years. The
analysis included responses from about 2,000 teen boys and 1,000
teen girls in each wave of surveys.
The surveys included questions about whether the youth had ever
received formal sex education at school, church, a community center
or elsewhere before age 18. Examples of sex education topics used in
the surveys included how to say no to sex, methods of birth control,
sexually transmitted diseases and how to prevent HIV and AIDS. The
second wave of surveys also asked about learning where to get birth
control and how to use a condom.
In addition, the teens reported whether they had ever discussed
these topics informally with a parent or guardian.
In the 2006 to 2010 surveys, 70 percent of girls and 61 percent of
boys said they had received formal instruction about birth control,
which dropped to 60 percent and 55 percent, respectively, in the
2011 to 2013 surveys.
Girls also reported less formal education on STDs, HIV and AIDS
prevention, and saying no to sex over time. Both girls and boys
reported more formal education in saying no to sex without
instruction about birth control in the second survey wave, the
researchers report in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Most of the decline in reported formal sex education happened in
rural areas, the study team notes.
Informal sex ed talks with parents did not appear to change over
time.
About one in five girls and more than a third of boys said they had
received no instruction on birth control from formal sources or from
a parent.
[to top of second column] |
“The ongoing changes in the public education system likely explain
some part of it,” said Brian Goesling of Mathematica Policy Research
in Princeton, New Jersey, who was not part of the study. “Schools
are placing more emphasis on academic standards and student
achievement. They may have less time for formal sex education.”
What happens in a particular school depends mostly on state and
local educational policy, he told Reuters Health by email.
“Sex education has long been contentious and political in the U.S.,”
Lindberg told Reuters Health by email. “Abstinence-only until
marriage programs took over sex education in the late 1990s, and
instruction about birth control has declined ever since.”
At the same time, concern about HIV declined, reducing
prioritization of sex education, she said.
“Too many teens are falling through the gaps, without instruction
from parents or formal settings,” she said. “Too few teens receive
sex education before they first have sex.”
While teen pregnancy has also been on the decline, that drop could
have been greater if comprehensive sex education were more
widespread, Lindberg said.
“Parents need to talk with their children about sex, about sexuality
and about normal healthy development,” not as a single conversation,
but as part of the ongoing job of being a parent, she said. “Parents
can also be important advocates for other sources of sex education,
working with their child’s school and pediatrician to ensure that
their child has access to the education that they need.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1T6IGUS Journal of Adolescent Health, online
March 29, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
