Much was made a couple of months ago when the Centers for Disease Control released a report on the effectiveness of various sex education programs (“Meta-analysis of Group Based Interventions to Prevent Adolescent Pregnancy, HIV and other STIs”).
“Abstinence-only Sex Ed Rejected by Expert Panel,” announced one pop-medical site headline, writing “there’s no evidence that abstinence-only sexual education programs cut teens’ risk…” In a see-I-told-you-so tone, the article added that the CDC Task Force report recommended “group-based comprehensive risk reduction (CRR) programs that focus on condoms and delaying sexual initiation.”
Unfortunately the article’s headline and conclusion – indeed the CDC’s report itself – are erroneous and misleading in light of a Minority Report published on November 7 by members of the Task Force. It looks like the CDC gamed the data to get the result it wanted. Worse, the CDC is apparently refusing to release the quantitative data for public scrutiny.
“The statements about the general effectiveness of the comprehensive risk reduction (CRR) strategy are not warranted by the data,” states the Minority Report, adding:
They overstate the likelihood that any single CRR program will be effective at protecting the sexual health of adolescents, especially the school-based programs, which are the focus of the public policy debate about sex education and impact the future health of millions of adolescents across the country. The CDC recommendations also fail to acknowledge the evidence for the effectiveness of abstinence education (AE) programs at reducing teen sexual activity, and invite conclusions that CRR is a superior approach to AE, which is not supported by the evidence (emphasis added)
The nine-page Minority Report outlines five Fundamental Concerns and Supporting Rationale:
- The conclusion of general CRR effectiveness is not supported by the totality of the data.
- Key measures of CRR program effectiveness are inadequate or confusing.
- The meta-analysis evidence for the reported CRR effect on STIs is not of adequate quality to inform national policy about sex education.
- The reduction in sexual activity showed by AE programs has been discounted because of a misplaced deference to randomized control trial (RCT) studies, some of which had import design problems.
- The CDC meta-analysis evidence does not support an assumption that the CRR strategy is superior to the AE strategy.
Here are a few of the many flaws identified by the Minority Report:
- combining “apples and oranges” data, “which undermines the validity of the entire study”
- failure to report lack of effectiveness for school-based CRR programs on key outcomes (condom use, pregnancy, STIs)
- a reliance on “frequency of teen condom use” rather than “consistent condom use” (which is the standard measure)
- requiring harsher standards for abstinence programs: the study allowed a 1 to 3 month follow-up time for condom/contraceptive/STI outcomes, while requiring no less than a 6 month follow-up time for abstinence outcomes.
The CDC blew a great opportunity to provide an objective evaluation of public school sex ed programs. In skewing the data, the CDC undermined its own credibility more than any abstinence program’s.
My sincerest thanks…
My husband agrees with me, I think this is quite a good site and a useful resource. Cheers for writing, keep it up….
Teen pregnancy went UP during the Bush years and thus the hey-day of abstinence education. Something is obviously broken in the system. I’d argue that encouraging better parenting would solve this problem best, but too many parents wimp out of teaching their kids about sex. Until parents can actually step up and BE PARENTs. It’s best for the good of the population to let teenagers know how to put a condom on.
Why can’t there be compromise? Why not encourage abstinence but say, if you’re going to do it anyway wear a condom, get tested after each partner, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS.