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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2008;299(17):2013-2015.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Chicago—Over the past decade, the US federal government has heavily promoted programs that advocate sexual abstinence as the key strategy for dealing with adolescent sexuality, but studies are demonstrating that the approach has little impact on teen sexual behavior or in preventing pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). As a result, health professionals and government officials are working to end the programs and to expand funding for other types of sexual education initiatives, and many states have refused federal funding for abstinence-only programs.

"By 2005, there were more than 800 programs that had been funded with over $1.5 billion, and increasingly, professionals, parents, policy makers, and adolescents have been raising concerns," said John Santelli, MD, MPH, of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. The mounting pressure to revamp sex education programs was a topic of discussion at the 2008 National . . . [Full Text of this Article]

ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS