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Does research support the claim that condom availability doesn't increase activity?
A study released yesterday in the American Journal of Public Health says that condom availability in high schools increases condom use by sexually active teens. However, this is not the claim that is making headlines today.

The Washington Post headline reads: "Condom programs don't increase likelihood of teen sex, study says."

But did the study really find that to be true?

Susan Blake and colleagues at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., studied a 1995 survey of sexual behavior data from more than 4,000 students attending high schools in Massachusetts. Nine schools in the study made condoms available, while 50 did not.

Researchers say they found that students in schools with condom programs were more likely to use condoms. Those in the other 50 schools tended to use other forms of birth control.

It is logical that when condoms are available, they can be used more. But Blake argues that the study also shows that students in schools with condoms available were slightly less likely to have had sex. The study says 49 percent of students at the schools without condom programs reported sexual activity. Only 42 percent of teens at schools where condoms were available said they had sex.

"The concerns of the small minority of parents who oppose providing condoms or related instruction in schools were not substantiated," wrote Blake in the study results.

But what the study did not look at were the rates of sexual behavior before and after condom programs were introduced into schools. "As the researchers themselves admit, because the study was not designed to examine changes in condom use from pre- to post-program, its findings don't definitively prove the condom availability programs influenced teen sexual behaviors," said a Family Research Council (FRC) press release yesterday.

FRC president Ken Connor says that while the study's facts do not back the claim that condom programs do not increase sexual activity, it does raise a valid concern for sex education practices. "The much more important question is, 'What is the best way to protect teens from contracting sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies?' " Connor said in the press release. "This study did not find condom use helped to prevent teen pregnancy. It found no differences in the pregnancy rate between girls with condom availability programs and those without."

No Weblog Friday
Due to technological changes at Christianity Today this week, there will be no site update on Friday, May 30. Weblog and the daily site update will return Monday.

Marriage and sexual ethics:

• Perry signs Defense of Marriage Act | Same-sex marriages or civil unions will not be recognized in Texas (Houston Chronicle)
  
  
• Bishops eye pastors to fight gay marriage | Want Catholics to press legislators for amendment (The Boston Globe)
  
  
• Marriage profitable for unwed parents | Marriage could be a direct path out of poverty for many poor young couples who have babies out of wedlock, say researchers who have analyzed data from a national study on "fragile families." (The Washington Times)
  
  
• Panel OKs narrowing 'crimes against nature' | Willing adults acting in private would be exempt (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
  
  
• Churches give sex districts the red light | Pastors, claiming to represent more than 100 000 Christians, want the "filthy" sex industry banished to the Karoo (Cape Times, South Africa)
  
  
• Less sex please, guys | Why does the Anglican church spend more time arguing over gays than spreading the word about God? (The Guardian, London)

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May (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47