Program bolsters abstinence intent

Teens in a South Carolina program aimed at reinforcing their abstinence education were more likely to support an abstinent lifestyle but were no different in their sexual behaviors from those taught abstinence without the supplemental classes, a study finds.

All 604 students in the study took Heritage Keepers’ core abstinence education classes, but only half participated in the group’s supplemental Life Skills Education program, said Christopher Trenholm, a researcher with Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The study was conducted for the Health and Human Services Department to examine the effects of a supplemental abstinence program, rather than the full abstinence program.

The Life Skills teens were significantly more likely than the control group to support abstinence messages and say they expected to abstain from sex at least through high school if not until marriage.

“That’s an important starting point,” Mr. Trenholm said. “You would not expect to see behavioral changes down the road if you didn’t see changes” in expectations.

However, when it came to behavior, no differences were found: Forty percent of both groups reported having sex at least once and didn’t differ in what age they first had sex or number of sexual partners.

Heritage Keepers is a grantee of the Title V Abstinence Education program, which is up for renewal later this month. A House-passed bill renews the $50-million-a-year program for two years but, for the first time, allows states to use abstinence funds for other kinds of sex education. The Senate has not acted on the bill.

Martha Kempner of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States said yesterday that the Mathematica study shows that “if it’s a bad message, you can pound it into a kid’s head every day throughout a school year and it’s still not going to make a difference.”

She said she was particularly unhappy with the teens’ lack of knowledge about condom efficacy. Many thought condoms, even when used correctly, wouldn’t prevent most HIV transmissions when scientific evidence shows they are effective, she said.

Anne Badgley, founder of the Heritage Community Services, which runs the abstinence programs, yesterday referred questions about the study to Mathematica.

Her organization cites a 2002 study by the Institute for Research and Evaluation as evidence of its success: Middle-school students who completed the Heritage program initiated sex at a 41 percent lower rate than students who did not and the rate was 72 percent lower for those who took the course a second time.