Study: Abstinence-only message ineffective

DALLAS — Abstinence-only programs like those promoted by the Bush administration don't seem to be working on teenagers in the president's home state, according to a state-sponsored study by Texas A&M University researchers.

The ongoing study, the first evaluation of the abstinence programs across the state, found that students in almost all high school grades were more sexually active after undergoing abstinence education.

Researchers don't believe the programs encouraged teenagers to have sex, only that the abstinence messages did not interfere with customary trends among adolescents.

"We didn't find what many would like for us to find," said A&M researcher Buzz Pruitt, who met with state health authorities last week to discuss the data.

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The federal government will spend $131 million this year on various abstinence-only education programs — $30 million more than was spent in 2004. But many public health experts are concerned that no one really knows what the government is buying.

"We're using a bunch of programs, and we don't know what their effectiveness is," said Mike Young of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Young and his colleagues have developed a curriculum called Sex Can Wait, which is one of the few abstinence programs that has documented at least a short-term influence on teenage behavior.

Among the findings in the Texas study: About 23 percent of the ninth-grade girls in the study already had sexual intercourse before they received any abstinence education, a figure below the national average.

After taking an abstinence course, the number among those same girls rose to 28 percent, a level closer to that of their peers across the state.

Buried in the Austin American-Statesman (subcription required)