Abstinence statistics

Mona Charen looks at some stories behind last month's headlines claiming that abstinence pledges don't work to prevent the spread of STD.

What did the study actually look at?

Now, let's look at substance. Despite the hyperventilating by Bill Smith and others in the condoms on cucumbers school of thought, the study on sexually transmitted diseases actually revealed very little about abstinence-only programs in schools. The report, which looked at data contained in the federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, found only that abstinence pledges were of limited (but not zero) utility. A pledge is not an abstinence program. As for data on risky anal and or oral sex by so-called abstainers, those too were self-described pledgers, not participants in an abstinence program.

In other words, the abstinence pledges seem to have been about as effective as a typical new year's resolution.

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Another study was conducted which showed different results.

the Journal of Adolescent and Family Health has just published a carefully crafted study of the Best Friends program and found that it does, in fact, deliver on its promise – to promote abstinence from sex, drugs and alcohol among its school-age participants. Best Friends (there is a companion program for boys called Best Men) began in Washington, D.C., in 1987 and has since expanded to serve 24 cities in 15 states. <snip> The results of the program have been dramatic. Compared with District of Columbia girls of comparable age, income, race and family structure examined in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBS), Best Friends girls were eight times less likely than others to use drugs. They were six times less likely than YRBS girls to engage in premarital sex. Among eighth-graders, 65.6 percent of Best Friends girls abstained from alcohol, compared to only 37.3 percent of YRBS youngsters.

The study showing that abstinence doesn't work got 60 hits over a three-month period. The study looking at the Best Friends program got two.

Somehow, editors are making pretty uniform decisions as to what is, or is not, newsworthy. You'd almost believe there's a bias in the media against "traditional morality".