This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (24)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Medical Practice  • Health Policy  • Men's Health  • Men's Contraception  • Patient Education/ Health Literacy  • Adolescent Medicine  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Amy Bleakley, PhD, MPH; Michael Hennessy, PhD, MPH; Martin Fishbein, PhD

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006;160:1151-1156.

Objective  To examine US public opinion on sex education in schools to determine how the public's preferences align with those of policymakers and research scientists.

Design  Cross-sectional survey.

Setting  July 2005 through January 2006.

Participants  Randomly selected nationally representative sample of US adults aged 18 to 83 years (N = 1096).

Main Outcome Measures  Support for 3 different types of sex education in schools: abstinence only, comprehensive sex education, and condom instruction.

Results  Approximately 82% of respondents indicated support for programs that teach students about both abstinence and other methods of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Similarly, 68.5% supported teaching how to properly use condoms. Abstinence-only education programs, in contrast, received the lowest levels of support (36%) and the highest level of opposition (about 50%) across the 3 program options. Self-identified conservative, liberal, and moderate respondents all supported abstinence-plus programs, although the extent of support varied significantly.

Conclusions  Our results indicate that US adults, regardless of political ideology, favor a more balanced approach to sex education compared with the abstinence-only programs funded by the federal government. In summary, abstinence-only programs, while a priority of the federal government, are supported by neither a majority of the public nor the scientific community.

Author Affiliations: Annenberg Public Policy Center, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Parents' Concern About Their Own and Their Children's Genetic Disease Risk: Potential Effects of Family History vs Genetic Test Results
Tarini et al.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2008;162:1079-1083.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Focus-on-Teens, sexual risk-reduction intervention for high-school adolescents: impact on knowledge, change of risk-behaviours, and prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases
Gaydos et al.
Int J STD AIDS 2008;19:704-710.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Politics and Nursing Science: Not Always A Healthy Combination
Roye
Nurs Sci Q 2008;21:13-17.
 

Politics, Parents, and Prophylaxis -- Mandating HPV Vaccination in the United States
Charo
NEJM 2007;356:1905-1908.
FULL TEXT  

Comprehensive sex education: strong public support and persuasive evidence of impact, but little funding.
Kirby
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2006;160:1182-1184.
FULL TEXT