Sex education and knowledge of pregnancy risk among U.S. teenage women

Abstract

Seven in 10 never-married U.S. women aged 15-19 have had a sex education course, almost all of them in school. Young black women are slightly more likely than whites to have had such a course. About half of all never-married teenagers have had courses which included some teaching about modern contraceptive methods; six in 10 have had some formal instruction about VD, and seven in 10 have had courses that included detailed instruction about the monthly menstrual cycle. Six in 10 of those who have had a course with information on the menstrual cycle claim to know the period of greatest pregnancy risk; but only one-third of those who have had such a course can in fact correctly identify the time when the risk of pregnancy is highest. Young white women are nearly two times more likely than blacks to identify the period of risk correctly. Knowledge of the period of risk is a particularly important issue in relation to teenage pregnancy, because many sexually active teenagers say that they do not use contraception because they believe they are protected from the risk of pregnancy by the time of month when they have intercourse. Among those who claim to know the period of greatest risk, a sex education course is the most common source of information for both blacks and whites, with home a distant second. Medical personnel and facilities convey information about pregnancy risk the most effectively, but they are the first source for only a tiny fraction of teenagers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

PIP: Some information on sex education that is based on data from the 1976 National Survey of Young women is presented. Each survey respondent was questioned as to whether she had ever had formal school instruction in sex education. If the respondent answered negatively, she was asked if she had taken such a course elsewhere. 7 in 10 never-married U.S. women aged 15-19 have had a sex education course, almost all of them in school. Young black women are slightly more likely than whites to have had such instruction. About 1/2 of all never-married teen-agers have had courses which included some teaching about modern contraceptive methods; 6 in 10 have had some formal instruction about venereal disease; 7 in 10 have had courses that included detailed instruction about the monthly menstrual cycle. Although 6 in 10 of those who have had a course with information on the menstrual cycle claim to know the period of greatest pregnancy risk, only 1/3 of those who have had a course can correctly identify the time when the risk of pregnancy is highest. Young white women are nearly twice as likely than blacks to identify the period of risk correctly. Among those claiming to know the period of greatest risk, a sex education course is the most common source of information for both blacks and whites with home a distant 2nd. Medical personnel and facilities are the 1st source of information for only a fraction of teen-agers. Whites who 1st learn about pregnancy risk at home, or in a sex education course after initially getting the information elsewhere, are more consistently able to identify the period of risk than teen-agers who 1st learn about it in a classroom. A sex education course is the most effective source of accurate information for the black teen-ager.