Document Type
Master's Culminating Experience
Publication Date
2012
Abstract
Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and unplanned teen pregnancies cost the United States billions of dollars every year in various forms of government aid. Why are the numbers of teenage incidences of these health indicators higher than almost every other industrialized nation? Why are the youth in the United States so far behind their peers in sexual health? This paper proposes that one cause is that government funding goes to abstinence only education curriculum which is taught in many schools across the nation. These curricula many times do not teach youth about sexual protection or health and other times contain false information. If there were success rates among the states that have high amounts of abstinence only education funding then a case could be made for these programs, but when the data is gathered and looked at, there is no positive correlation between the amount of money spent on abstinence only education and lowered rates of these sexual health indicators, but rather there is a correlation between abstinence only education funding and high rates of Chlamydia and teenage pregnancy.
Repository Citation
McAdams, J. W. (2012). The Efficacy of Abstinence Only Education. Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.
