Repro Health Hub

Another pat on the back for the Guttmacher Institute! Earlier this year, the research center published some enlightening information about the recent trends in abortion rates within the U.S. and have now released their most recent research is a study on sexual behavior of American teens.

According to the study led by Laura Lindberg, the Institute analyzed information about teens between the ages of 15-19 taken from the 2002 National Survey of Family growth, with findings that demystify the myth that teens perform oral sex as a way of both being sexually active and remaining virgins.

The findings were as follows

• 55 percent of teenagers have engaged in heterosexual oral sex
• 50 percent have engaged in vaginal sex; and 11 percent have had anal sex.
• Both oral and anal sex are much more common among teens who have already engaged in vaginal intercourse than among those who haven’t, suggesting that teens initiate a range of sexual activities around the same time, rather than substitute one for another, Lindberg says.

“Our research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth,” Lindberg said in a statement. “There is no good evidence that teens who have not had intercourse engage in oral sex with a series of partners.”

The study will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Studies like these are imperative to understanding teenage sexuality, how to best prepare those who are sexually active to act safely and be aware of possible risks, and how to shape policy that effectively support these findings.

“The study has clear policy implications,” said Lindberg. “While oral and anal sex carry no risk of pregnancy, engaging in these behaviors can nevertheless put teens at risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Counseling and education should take into account total STI risk by addressing the full range of behaviors that teens engage in, including oral and anal sex. It is crucial that teens receive evidence-based education and counseling about STI risks and protective behaviors for all types of sexual activity. The federal government’s exclusive emphasis on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs does not give teens the skills and information they need to be safe.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Over the past month, there has been a lot of talk about sex education in this country (or a lack thereof) and we learned the sad truth of why education is necessary. The most recent study from the University of Washington in Seattle that was released a week ago was the most telling of the current state of sex ed. The team of researchers based their finding in data pulled from a national survey of teenagers conducted back in 2002, and the results reaffirm everything we’ve suspected for years now.

The findings go as follows: That year, one in four teens received abstinence-only education, nine percent received no sex ed at all, and the other two thirds had access to comprehensive education that included information about birth control. The teens that had access to comprehensive sex ed were 60% less likely to become pregnant or impregnating someone else than someone receiving no education and 30% less likely than those with abstinence-only education. The leader of the study, Pamela Kohler, said in a statement, “There was no evidence to suggest that abstinence-only education decreased the likelihood of ever having sex or getting pregnant.”

This comes to absolutely no surprise to us- it only further emphasizes the need for accurate information to be accessible to teens. Fortunately, there are multiple efforts to tackle this issue from new fronts online, like Scarleteen, a fabulous website dedicated to young adult sex education.

The organization believes that sex education should have a role beyond the classroom and that sex ed is about more than just birth control and safe sex. With a holistic approach to informing youth about sex, sexuality, and relationships, Scarleteen offer its nearly 30,000 users a valuable resource to answer anonymous questions and provide a fun forum for wide ranging sex topics.

And for that, they are our Repro Hero of the Week. Bravo, Scarleteen!

The Center for Disease Control has just published a new report, and we don’t like the results one bit. According to the CDC, 1 in 4 teenage girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted infection. Here is a breakdown of the findings according to the Wall Street Journal: 

“An estimated 3.2 million girls ages 14 to 19, or about 26% of that age group, are infected, and the rate is highest among black girls, the study found. Nearly half the blacks surveyed had at least one sexually transmitted infection, compared with 20% among both whites and Mexican-American teens. The vast majority — about 18% — were infected with strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV, that can cause genital warts and cervical cancer, the CDC said.”

The 2008 National STD Prevention Conference in Chicago, where this important information was officially announced today, provided revealing information about contraceptive use and STI testing among young girls. The CDC released findings from a separate study that showed that even though most (82%) sexually active 15 to 24 year old women received contraceptive or STD/HIV services, only 39% receive both which indicates that many women at high risk are not receiving necessary prevention services. 

So why, exactly, are these numbers so shockingly high?  

What many people, including Planned Parenthood of America, consider the root of the problem is the lack of comprehensive sex education. “The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure and teenage girls are paying the real price,” the organization’s president Cecile Richards said. 

What is probably most staggering is the racial disparity these studies show. Of the total amount of chlamydia cases, young black women were found to make up nearly half of the cases. The director of the CDC’s STD prevention division John Douglas points to limited access to health care as a possible cause, an obstacle that creates delays in seeking care, fewer doctors visits, and is completely unacceptable. 

How do we combat these STI rates? With the help of organizations like the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). The advocacy group has a strong record of providing accurate information and comprehensive education about sexuality, sexual health, and sexual rights. For the past 40 years SIECUS has been pushing for effective public policy in sex-related issues and created much needed (as the CDC has shown) reliable sexual health information for educators, health professionals, and communities around the country.

Good news for Iowans! Just last week the state’s Governor Chet Culver agreed to reject hundreds of thousands of federal dollars for abstinence only education, which will make the state the seventeenth to reject the federal funding under Title V.  The title provides approximately 40 million dollars in funding nationwide for the ineffective and purely ideological sexual education method, and in the past year there has been a huge trend of rejecting these funds. Culver made his decision following insistence from teen pregnancy prevention organization, FutureNet. 

Rhonda Chittenden, executive director of the organization, said, “Iowa must end this poor fiscal and public health policy now. There is no reliable evidence to date that these abstinence-only programs impact the long-term behavioral outcomes at which they aim, such as the delay of sexual initiation and reduction of adolescent pregnancies and STI/HIV infections.” 

FutureNet’s commitment to progressive change in their state has caught our eye and earned them the title of Hero of the Week! Here is their kick ass mission statement:

The mission of FutureNet is to support within Iowa a leadership network concerned with issues of adolescent pregnancy prevention, parenting, and sexual health.

The organization is not only pressuring Governor Culver to abstain from abstinence-only but also has several other programs that promote positive and effective sex education. Their TxT (Talking Sex Together) campaign merges youth-friendly text messaging with sex education to encourage communication that will help prevent teen pregnancy and inform teens about safe sex. Also worthy of mentioning is the organization’s initiative called Touchstones: Sexual Health Measures that Matter. This multi-year project aims to ensure that by 2012 all sex education in the state of  Iowa will be designed and implemented according to science-based practice.

Great job, Futurenet!

 With so much positive and progressive work going on around the country, those of us at the Repro Health Hub would like to take a moment out of each week to give the spotlight to some of the awesome organizations that are working hard to promote equality and reproductive health, rights and justice by initiating our Hero of the Week!   Without further ado, our first Hero of the Week is (drumroll please!)… 

The Pro-Choice Public Education Project!   Based out of  New York City, the project is an empowering resource for young women looking to develop their leadership skills and become more active in the promotion of reproductive justice. Just check out their mission statement: 

To educate young women and the organizations that serve them about reproductive health, rights, and justice in order to develop a new generation of leaders. 

Aside from leadership development and effective pro-choice campaigning, the Public Education Project (PEP) also conducts research initiatives in reproductive health. Their latest undertaking (which comes out this spring! We can’t wait!) will focus on African-American,  Latina, and Asian Pacific Islander women and provide a quantitative study on these populations’ perspectives regarding reproductive health, rights, and activism.  Be sure to check out their website for volunteer opportunities near you or to download some of their great campaign material! 

A big cheers and thanks from your friends here at the Repro Health Hub!

Comprehensive sex ed.  Teens want it, and some state officials are starting to pay attention. 

In Florida, Democratic lawmakers are proposing a bill to include curriculum about contraceptives, as opposed to promoting only abstinence.  Though the bill will maintain that abstinence is the only absolute way to prevent getting pregnant or contracting STDs, it will allow for students in the 6^th grade onwards to receive education about contraceptives, their benefits and their side effects.   

As promoted to be “middle-ground” between what conservatives want and what liberals want, this bill addresses the reality that teens are talking about sex and have more questions than they do answers.   

In the meantime, New York City high school students are trying to get that very fact across to City Councilmembers.  Ten courageous Bronx teenagers stood in front of City Council last November, defending that comprehensive sex ed should be mandatory in New York City schools.  As it stands now, principals have the final say in approving the comprehensive sex curriculum that was passed by the city’s Department of Education in October 2007.   

The young female activists, who originally started this project to fight for comprehensive sex ed while volunteering at a non-profit organization, have continued to rally for their rights through starting a petition, creating a MySpace page, and disseminating self-designed brochures on sex.  It’s apparent that these teens are more aware than their lawmaking counterparts of the discrepancy between teen pregnancy rates in the Bronx and those rates citywide. 

Now that’s teen power at its finest.

By Pooja Awatramani