Sex education continues to gain prominence as a critical factor in current challenges to the nation's public health. Adolescent pregnancy, with its frequently adverse consequences for the health and well-being of both mother and child, has reached unprecedented levels in the United States, and AIDS now threatens society in its entirety. Despite awareness that effective sex education is essential to combatting these problems, current debates, focused on the content and timing of sex education provided in the schools, are shortsighted. As currently practiced in this country, sex education curriculums convey the wrong message and are targeted to the wrong audience. In emphasizing the provision of data to youth, we ignore the fact that parental guidance and direction are more often helpful than data and options. Yet we fail to provide parents and others who comprise the traditional systems of child care and nurturance with the information they require to assume responsibility for the safe and healthy development of children and youth. Understanding the reasons for the failure of conventional sex education provides a foundation for developing a more effective approach to preventing adolescent pregnancy. Defining an effective message and targeting information to the appropriate audience are necessary to effect a significant reduction in premature sexual behavior among adolescents.
This case-control study investigated the potential association between ambient levels of carbon monoxide in a pregnant woman's neighborhood of residence and her chance of delivering a low birth weight infant. Low birth weight infants and normal birth...
A graduate education program in public health for American Indians was introduced in the fall of 1971 at the College of Public Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. The program was initiated with support from the Office of Economic O...
The Indian Health Service (IHS) was transferred from the Department of Interior to the Public Health Service in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1955. At that time, the general health of Indian people substantially lagged behind th...
A review of surveys on smoking was undertaken by the Smoking, Tobacco, and Cancer Program of the National Cancer Institute as part of its planning for smoking control interventions. Eighteen surveys collecting smoking data were identified. The key pe...
The McLaughlin Public Health Service clinic serves several thousand Lakota people (Sioux) on Standing Rock Indian Reservation, SD. In 1981, a priority-setting exercise established for the first time a grassroots expression of the concerns of the clin...
National Hospice Study data for 1981-82 were used to predict the location of care for terminal cancer patients. Sites of care were conventional care in hospitals, hospital-based hospice care, and hospice care in the home. Subjects were terminal cance...
The objective of this study was to determine how the sales of various segments of the high fiber and nonhigh fiber, ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal market were influenced by a health message advertising campaign about the possible benefits of a high fiber,...
Dolan, M P; Black, J L; Deford, H A; Skinner, J R; Robinowitz, R;
Published Date:
1987 Jul-Aug
Source:
Public Health Rep. 102(4):395-398
Description:
To identify variables that discriminate needle-sharing among drug abusers, 224 male drug abusers were studied. They had been admitted to a 30-day inpatient drug treatment program over a 19-month period (September 1983 through March 1985). The variabl...
The infant mortality rate for 1982 in Jersey City, a medium-sized urban community, was found to have increased sharply from that for 1981. An investigation by health officials revealed that the increase occurred only among infants delivered to Jersey...
Intravenous drug abusers in a methadone program in Minnesota were offered HIV-antibody screening to determine the degree of interest in screening and extent of infection. Thirty-nine (85 percent) were willing to be tested. Only seven refused. All pat...
An epidemic of abuse with "T's and blues" began in the late 1970's in which pentazocine-Talwin tablets ("T")--and the antihistamine tripelennamine (known as blues) were crushed, dissolved together, filtered, and injected intravenously. The resulting ...
The Indian Health Service (IHS) is a bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the Public Health Service. It was formed in 1955 by a transfer of health services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Inter...
The health care profession is witnessing a shift in focus from the interests and needs of the service provider to those of the potential consumer in an effort to attract and maintain clients. This study illustrates the role that marketing research ca...
This article describes the burden of illness of Indians eligible for services from the Indian Health Service (IHS) and discusses strategies for reducing morbidity and mortality related to those conditions. To improve health to an extent that parallel...
Fluoridation of public water supplies is the best method of preventing dental caries. Yet, many water systems do not maintain the optimal concentration of fluoride. The Community Fluoridation Compliance Index was developed to provide retrospective an...
This study concerns the frequency of visits to the dispensary by workers with vague symptoms of physical illness at a polyvinyl chloride plant in Louisville, KY, where an outbreak of hepatic angiosarcoma occurred. The illness behavior of three cohort...
Secor-Turner, Molly; McMorris, Barbara; Sieving, Renee; Bearinger, Linda H.;
Published Date:
May 06 2013
Source:
Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 45(2):101-107.
Description:
CONTEXTUnderstanding the interplay of multiple contexts of adolescents’ sexual risk behaviors is essential to helping them avoid pregnancy and STDs. Although a body of research has identified multiple individual- and family-level variables associat...
Kirby, D; Short, L; Collins, J; Rugg, D; Kolbe, L; Howard, M; Miller, B; Sonenstein, F; Zabin, L S;
Published Date:
1994 May-Jun
Source:
Public Health Rep. 109(3):339-360
Description:
This review was undertaken in recognition of the mounting public health and social problems associated with adolescent sexual behavior and the importance of basing school-affiliated programs designed to reduce sexual risk-taking behavior on sound res...
Using data from a collaborative program of research, this paper examines the prevalence of delinquency, alcohol and drug use, sexual intercourse, and pregnancy among youth in three urban settings. The findings indicate that a substantial portion of a...
Teen pregnancy and childbearing have declined over the past two decades to historic lows. The most recent declines have occurred during a time of coordinated national efforts focused on teen pregnancy. This article highlights a federal partnership to...
Schilling, R F; el-Bassel, N; Schinke, S P; Gordon, K; Nichols, S;
Published Date:
1991 May-Jun
Source:
Public Health Rep. 106(3):297-304
Description:
Although most women infected with HIV are intravenous drug users, some contact the virus through sexual contact with IV drug users. To reach at-risk women, public health officials must develop a range of prevention strategies. One approach, skills tr...
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