Sex Education Before Age 15 Discourages Teens From Becoming Sexually Active, Study Finds
Friday, December 21, 2007

National Partnership for Women & Families’ Daily Women’s Health Policy Report

Teenagers who have had formal sex education before age 15 are more likely to abstain from becoming sexually active, according to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, Reuters/The Australian reports (Reuters/The Australian, 12/21).

For the study, CDC epidemiologist Trisha Mueller and colleagues examined data from more than 2,000 teenage boys and girls between ages 15 and 19. The teenagers had participated in the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and received some type of formal sex education. The researchers did not differentiate between programs that emphasized abstinence and those that taught comprehensive sex education with information about contraception, HealthDay News reports (Vann, HealthDay News, 12/20). The study found that teenage boys and girls who had received some type of sex education were 71% and 59% less likely, respectively, to have sex before age 15. The boys who had sex education also were three times more likely to use contraception the first time they had sex, the study found. Sex education appeared to have no effect on whether teenage girls used contraception, according to the researchers. The study also found that black teenage girls who had sex education were 91% less likely to have sex before age 15 (Reuters/The Australian, 12/21).

"Sex education seems to be working" at delaying sexual activity among teenagers, according to Mueller (Wetzstein, Washington Times, 12/20). She added that it seems to be especially "beneficial for youth who are considered to be at-risk." However, certain subpopulations of teens -- including rural white or Hispanic teenage girls who dropped out of school -- might be more likely to have sex before age 15 even if they had sex education, Mueller said. "They were kind of opposite findings," Mueller said, adding that the number of people in those groups in the study was so small it was not statistically significant.

The researchers said the results could not explain why sex education might have a stronger effect in delaying sex among teenage boys and black girls, adding that further research is needed. Bill Albert, deputy director of the Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit group National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy, said that "the report makes clear that the timing of sex education is quite important." He added, "That is, providing sex education to young people at an early age seems quite important in helping delay sexual activity" (HealthDay News, 12/20).

An abstract of the study is available online.

The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is published for http://www.nationalpartnership.org/, a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, by The Advisory Board Company. © 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.