The Healthy for Life Project: Sexual Risk Behavior Outcomes

Abstract:
This article presents sexual risk behavior outcome data from the Healthy for Life (HFL) project, which used a social influences model and attempted to positively affect the health behaviors of middle school students in a variety of areas, including sexuality. The in-school program was designed to be supplemented by parent, community, and peer components, although the authors indicate that they had difficulty implementing the parent and community components. The research used data on an initial sample of more than 2,400 middle school students followed from grade 6 to grade 10. Schools were assigned to three conditions: age appropriate (HFL program taught in grades 6, 7, and 8), intensive (HFL program taught in grade 7), and control. By ninth grade, the lifetime intercourse rate among both groups of HFL subjects was significantly higher than for controls. In tenth grade, the age-appropriate group reported higher adjusted rates of lifetime and past-month intercourse than did the controls. The expectation that this approach would be effective in reducing adolescent sexual risk behavior was therefore not supported. The authors conclude that the influence of social and community norms and contextual factors has a far greater influence on the behavior of students than this school-based program targeting only one grade cohort.

Author(s): Moberg, D. Paul; and Piper, Douglas L.

Publication: AIDS Education and Prevention, Vol. 10, No. 2


Date Published: 1/1/1998

Pages: 21

Location Code: 8321