If you were ever asked which age group needed the most sexual health education, you would probably answer with “teenagers.” Being a teenager, especially in the 14-17 range, has a stigma: they are careless, wild, and they think they’re invincible. So sex is just sex. They do not always think about the fact that they could possibly get pregnant, or receive an STI. Why bother using condoms or taking any sort of measure to protect themselves? While many older people do in fact think that this is what runs through the heads of most teenagers, recent findings show that teens are actually using condoms more frequently. Based on recent studies from Boston Health Trackers and a national survey, there is a “widespread use of condoms among the nearly one-third of adolescents who had intercourse, belying the portrayals of wanton recklessness that are the coin of the cable realm.” Furthermore, the study even found that adults in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who were still single “used protection at substantially lower levels than youngsters.” Talk about the tables being turned.
The researchers attribute this increase in condom use to a lifetime that has been framed by the knowledge and presence of HIV/AIDS. However, the prevalence of certain STIs (like Chlamydia) is still increasing among teens, which indeed complicates this analysis. Nonetheless, research shows that condom use itself is on the rise, which has excited the researchers taking part in this series of studies depicting love “American style” among 14-94 year olds. In a similar study focused on Boston teenagers, 73% of high school students said that they used protection during their most recent sex act. These results help to suggest what works and what more needs to be done to continue encouraging such promising behavior. Furthermore, it helps to show what needs to be changed so that this behavior continues in the older age groups, which experience a drop in the rates of condom use. For example, the national study found that men between the ages of 18 and 24 were only half as likely to use a condom as adolescent males—a large decrease. Generally, as age increased, condom use continued to decrease.
While these findings relate specifically to teens in Boston and the national study about sexual behavior in the U.S., they both give me hope about condom use on an international scale. The growing, worldwide knowledge about STIs and HIV is encouraging, but there is still much that we need to overcome in order to continue this pattern everywhere. HIV/AIDS runs rampant in many areas, especially in countries all over Africa, and if we continued to promote condom use among all the age groups, not just young people, then it is possible that at some point in the future we could see a decrease in the percentage of those living with it. While using a condom is frowned upon or disliked in many cultures, if we started to encourage the use of protection even more, then we may see the desired results. It could also decrease pregnancy rates, which could then possibly lead to a change in maternal mortality ratios for each country as well as a reduction of deaths due to unsafe abortion. Although many governments and countries all over the world are already employing this idea by offering free or reduced-rate contraceptive methods, we can still do more because the prevalence of people living with AIDS and other STIs continues to be extremely high despite these efforts. Take, for example, Rwanda’s fairly recent changes in family planning: the government offers short, long-term and permanent contraception methods that can be retrieved from secondary posts at a low cost if one does not live near a health clinic. After reading about these study results, and considering examples like that of Rwanda, I know that if we continued to emphasize the importance of sexual health (especially the use of protection) we will eventually live in a world with healthier people, who do not have to experience the consequential issues that come from having an STI.
I am extremely passionate about this particular topic because I actually teach an STIs & HIV workshop to ninth grade students in Boston Public High Schools through Peer Health Exchange. PHE is a health education program that recruits college students to volunteer a couple of hours a week to teach a workshop on different health topics to students that would otherwise not receive any health education whatsoever. One of the most common themes is sexual health, including topics called “Pregnancy Prevention”, “Sexual-Decision Making”, and “Rape and Sexual Assault”. In my particular workshop, we promote condom use throughout the lesson, emphasizing how important they are as a form of protection against STIs and HIV. Having done this for two years, I have personally seen how the students tend to prefer learning about all of this from someone closer to their age rather than a teacher who they sometimes view as detached from their situations. While at times the program is not flawless, I think it’s a good start. I believe that a similar program could be very successful among young people internationally—it’d be a great springboard for other ideas that could continue to promote sexual protection and good health among future generations of teens. They are, after all, the ones who will eventually be responsible for continuing these behaviors to prevent even higher prevalence rates of STIs in the coming years.
References:
Smith, Stephen. “Love, American Style.” The Boston Globe. 7 February 2011. Accessed
11 February 2011. <http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/02/07/when_it_comes_to_sex_and_health_teens_may_have_something_to_teach_their_parents/?page=2>.
United Nations. Responses to the List of Issues and Questions With Regard to the Consideration
Of the Combined fourth to sixth Reports: Rwanda. Proceedings of the 43rd Session of the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; 2009 19 Jan-6 Feb;
Palais de Nations Salle XVI.
Awesome article Emily! I particularly enjoyed hearing about your experiences with Peer Health Exchange. It sounds like a really rewarding and influential program. Last semester, I read an article by Marston and King (2006), entitled “Factors that shape young people’s behavior: a systematic review”. I think you would really find it really interesting and relevant to your volunteer efforts.
It is great to read your blog – It is clear from the way you write how passionate you are about this subject! As a medical student, I was also involved in a sex education project – You might find it interesting to check out their work to see how it compares with PHE – http://www.sexpression.org.uk