Sex ed helps teens think twice
Reported December 24, 2007
Teenagers who have had formal sex education are far more likely to put off having sex, contradicting earlier studies on the effectiveness of such programs, U.S. researchers said Wednesday.
They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71% less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59% less likely to have sex before age 15.
Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex, according to the study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
“Sex education seems to be working,” said Trisha Mueller, a CDC epidemiologist who led the study.
Mystery of U.S. mortality patterns
People living along the southern Atlantic coast of the U.S., as well as those residing along the Mississippi River, die at a faster rate than the national average, while death rates are below the norm in the upper Great Plains, a new study shows.
These patterns of mortality have been consistent for 35 years, Dr. Jeralynn Sittig Cossman and colleagues from Mississippi State University found.
“Place matters, and it matters for a long period of time,” Cossman said.
“We’re trying to disentangle poverty rates, access to care, and really get to what’s going to explain these pockets.”
Most of this variation can’t be explained by race or income, she added, so as-yet unknown environmental or population factors must be at work.
The findings, published in the American Journal of Public Health, came from analyzing county-by-county mortality data for seven five-year periods, from 1968 to 2002.
Source : From Times Wire Reports
