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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

William A. Smith, Public Policy Office, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US (SIECUS), 1706 R St NW, Washington, DC 20009, 202-265-2405, wsmith@siecusdc.org

The federal government has been funding abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, in one form or another, for nearly a quarter century. With over $1 billion spent, the evidence is increasingly clear that these programs do not help young people protect their health in the long term, and in fact, may be causing harm. This presentation will provide an overview of this evidence, including new studies released in late 2005 and 2006. More problematic however, is that the federal government has expressed an increasing need to impose ideological restrictions on these programs. First, in 1996's welfare law, when funding for these programs increased exponentially, and again in January 2006, when, under the guise of a funding announcement for the largest (and strictest) pot of money for abstinence-only programs known as Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE), the federal government declared that the point of abstinence-only programs was proper preparation for marriage. The 2006 development has been fully reviewed and analyzed by the presenter. This analysis has been published in the paper “It Gets Worse.” The presentation will chronicle the historical development of these programs and their increasing distance from and hostility toward public health. In particular, their rejection of risk reduction as a public health goal and its supplanting with risk elimination will figure prominently. Finally, the presentation will focus on the key policy and advocacy mechanisms to promote more comprehensive approaches to sexual health, including further dissemination and understanding of the APHA resolution passed last year in support of comprehensive sex education.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn the latest information on federal abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Participants will receive and overeview of the most recent efficacy data. Particpants will be able to identify the key advocacy campaigns in this area. Participants will be able to connect this to the APHA resolution on sex education that passed last year.

Keywords: Sexual Behavior, Adolescent Health

Related Web page: www.siecus.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No