What is Abstinence Plus education?

Abstinence plus (A+) sexuality education programs promote abstinence, PLUS other methods to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV, and pregnancy prevention for young people. Sometimes, abstinence plus education is also referred to as comprehensive sexuality education.

Because the risk of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, infertility, and HIV infection are high, young people need the most comprehensive information about sexuality to protect them from these serious consequences. Promoting abstinence as part as a comprehensive sexuality program which provides information about STDs, HIV, and contraception, have been shown to successfully delay initiation of sexual intercourse, prevent disease and pregnancy. Providing knowledge to young people now will protect their health for the future.

What is Abstinence-only education?

Abstinence-only education, sometimes referred to as abstinence-until-marriage, teaches that abstinence from sexual intercourse until marriage is the only 100% safe way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and does not teach about safe sex. To date, research in scientific publications have NOT shown that abstinence-only education programs are effective in disease prevention or pregnancy prevention for young people. In fact, many abstinence-only programs have been shown to contain misleading or incorrect information. Promotion of abstinence-only education should be based on sound science and abstinence-only is flawed from a scientific standpoint. Educators and parents should understand the standards used for scientific publication before making any decisions about health education for young people.

Although abstinence-only programs have increased in recent years, the evaluation of such programs have not been scientifically evaluated. Recently, the most popular of the abstinence-only programs were evaluated for scientific accuracy, and investigators found that more than 80% of them contained misleading, distorted, or even completely false information. For example, many say incorrectly that condoms provide only limited, if any, protection against pregnancy and STDs. In fact, scientific studies have found that condoms are shown to prevent HIV transmission at least 87% of the time, with some studies showing much higher rates of protection. Abstinence-only programs have also been found to present religions beliefs as scientific fact and some have even reinforced unhealthy stereotypes about girls and boys.

Take a look at a great chart comparing abstinence-only to abstinence-plus sexuality education by following this link.

Peer Review - The Standard for Scientific Information

Valid scientific articles should be peer reviewed. Peer review is a process of inspection by scientific peers used for the publication of manuscripts for journals and in the awarding of funding for research. Publishers and funding agencies use peer review to select and to approve submissions. A rationale for peer review is that it assures that criteria are met for scientific validity for a particular discipline. The process of peer review identifies any errors or omissions by authors, critiques methodology, and evaluates the interpretation of results prior to publication. Ideally, the authors are anonymous to the reviewers and the reviewers are independent. Publications that have undergone peer review are likely to meet the rigorous standards of their discipline.

Authors and journals should disclose any financial or potential conflicts of interest, as well as follow ethical guidelines to protect human participants, especially young people. In general, publications in peer-reviewed journals, which are not commercially supported by industry, meet the highest standards. These standards are met by journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine or the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Self-published reports funded by organizations with industry or political support do not carry the same high standards as publications in a peer reviewed journal. Certain abstracts or papers published for conference presentations may meet this criteria if they are peer-reviewed for acceptance.

Basic Background Information and Important Facts in a Presentation!

In order to spread the word to others about the importance of AB+ education, we have created the all encompasing powerpoint presentation that offers an overview of everything from STD rates to parent child communication. The presentation is available in both powerpoint and pdf format.