Department of Plant Biology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2011;6(10):e24658. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024658. Epub 2011 Oct 14.
The United States ranks first among developed nations in rates of both teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. In an effort to reduce these rates, the U.S. government has funded abstinence-only sex education programs for more than a decade. However, a public controversy remains over whether this investment has been successful and whether these programs should be continued. Using the most recent national data (2005) from all U.S. states with information on sex education laws or policies (N = 48), we show that increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates. This trend remains significant after accounting for socioeconomic status, teen educational attainment, ethnic composition of the teen population, and availability of Medicaid waivers for family planning services in each state. These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S. In alignment with the new evidence-based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative and the Precaution Adoption Process Model advocated by the National Institutes of Health, we propose the integration of comprehensive sex and STD education into the biology curriculum in middle and high school science classes and a parallel social studies curriculum that addresses risk-aversion behaviors and planning for the future.
美国在青少年怀孕率和性传播疾病发病率方面均位居发达国家之首。为了降低这些比率，美国政府在过去十年中为“禁欲教育”项目提供了资金支持。然而，对于该投资是否成功以及是否应继续实施这些项目仍存在公众争议。我们利用来自全美各州（N=48）的最新全国数据（2005 年），这些数据均包含有关性教育法律或政策的信息，结果表明，更加重视禁欲教育与青少年怀孕率和出生率呈正相关。在考虑到各州的社会经济地位、青少年教育程度、青少年人口的种族构成以及获得每个州计划生育服务医疗补助豁免的情况后，这一趋势仍然显著。这些数据清楚地表明，作为一项州政策，仅进行禁欲教育并不能有效预防青少年怀孕，实际上可能导致美国青少年怀孕率居高不下。为了与新的循证青少年怀孕预防倡议和美国国立卫生研究院倡导的预防采用过程模型保持一致，我们建议将全面的性教育和性传播疾病教育纳入中学和高中理科课程的生物学课程中，并同时开设一门社会研究课程，以解决规避风险行为和未来规划问题。
