SIECUS state profiles
2008-08-22 15:35:05.980852+00 by
Dan Lyke
3 comments
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States has released A Portrait of Sexuality Education and Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs in the States (Fiscal Year 2007 Edition), a comprehensive profile of sex ed with profiles for individual states. RH Realith Check: Gaining Ground on Sex Ed: Five Years of SIECUS State Profiles gives the run-down:
The real victims in this situation continue to be the young people who are receiving misleading, biased, or false information through tax-payer funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, and who have missed the opportunity to receive good, comprehensive sex education. The teen birth rate is up 3 percent nationally, the first time in 15 years that we have seen any increase, and one in four teenage girls is infected with an STD. ...
Via.
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Children and growing up Politics Sexual Culture Sociology Education
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2008-08-23 10:54:15.427641+00 by:
stevesh
I've never bought that stat about 1 in 4 teenaged girls having an STD.
Seems like at the lower end of things (12, 13) the percentage whom have had sex would be much smaller, so that by the time you get to the 17-year-olds they would have to all have the clap.
I suspect it's one of those intentionally misleading "ststistics", like "one in 7 women will die of breast cancer".
#Comment Re: made: 2008-08-23 11:26:24.884971+00 by:
meuon
It can be influenced by the range of what can be defined as an "STD" is broad. ranging from herpes and HPV to minor things you can only detect with a microbiology exam (few if any side effects or signs), plus the biggies like HIV, Gonorrhea and Syphilis.
If "one in four" teenage girls, how does that correlate to boys?
The Siecus report was interesting.
#Comment Re: made: 2008-08-23 12:28:08.86607+00 by:
Dan Lyke
Good eye, Steve. Here's the CDC press release on the study that came up with the "one in four" number, and more here, there's enough of that as HPV, and little enough overlap between the others (chlamydia, trichonomiasis and herpes) that I wonder if there's another common transmission vector or some other factor in play.
Seems like there are also a whole bunch of strains of HPV that get lumped into one, I could do with some learning on that front.