Presenter(s): Kara Krnacik—Economics
Faculty Mentor(s): Melissa Graboyes, Ed Rubin
Session: Prerecorded Poster Presentation
The federal government began providing funding for abstinence-only sexual education in the 1980s to decrease teen pregnancy and poverty in the United States . In the last two decades a significant body of research has found that comprehensive sexual education is a better mechanism to obtain lower teen pregnancy rates and improve teen physical and mental health . This paper investigates the effects of states rejecting federal funding from the Title V Abstinence-Only Until Marriage Program on teen health and behavioral outcomes, with the assumption that these outcomes will improve upon the rejection of Title V funding . This research utilizes a quasi-experimental difference-in-difference econometric model to estimate the effects of the rejection of Title V funding on contraceptive use and sexually transmitted disease (STD) rates in teens of high school age in the United States . The data that this research utilizes comes from the Centers for Disease Control and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States . The preliminary results find that rejection of Title V funding caused small statistically significant increases in contraceptive use rates and decreases in STD transmission rates . The results of this study indicate that comprehensive sexual education is better for teen health and behavioral outcomes than abstinence-only education . This study also highlights the complexity of federal funding for sexual education and the need for evidence-based policy when determining sexual education curriculum . This research adds to the few studies that have investigated the effects of state-level sexual education policy on teen health and behavioral outcomes .