A study of new york city's school condom availability program found a significant increase in condom use among sexually active students but no increase in sexual activity 1 a world health organization review of studies on sexuality education found that access to counseling and contraceptive services did not encourage earlier or increased. In a 1995 survey of denver high school students, 85 percent supported condom availability in their school 16 the institute of medicine, the american college of obstetricians and gynecologists, the american academy of pediatrics, and the american medical association have all adopted policies recommending that condoms be made available to. Providing condoms in high schools is nothing new several other maryland school districts do, as well as school districts in neighboring washington, new york city, los angeles, boston, colorado.
When kids head back to school in montgomery county, maryland, some will have condoms available, to fight record rates of sexually transmitted infections (stds. Schools should also consider the costs of making condoms available the financial costs are small, but the social or political costs may be large for religious or moral reasons, some people may strongly oppose making condoms available in schools, and both their beliefs and the community conflicts that might ensue should be properly considered.
Across the united states, schools and school districts have been establishing condom availability programs in response to fears about hiv, other sexually transmitted diseases (stds) and pregnancy among teenagers while some districts have considered such programs and decided against them,1 by early 1995, at least 431 schools in 50 school districts had established programs making condoms. Secondary schools will hand out free contraceptives to under-16s in an attempt to tackle teenage pregnancies condoms and contraceptive pills will be given away to schoolchildren, with a doctor or. Condom availability programs have been researched numerous times with similar results when schools that make condoms available to students are compared to similar schools that do not, it becomes clear that students who have access to condoms do not have more sex, but they are more likely to use condoms. Condoms are widely available at high schools in the district of columbia — given out in clinics and by teachers who get training and by students designated as peer educators.
For example, one study presents three ways in which schools can make obtaining condoms easier in these availability programs, including making obtaining condoms more private, eliminating or reducing the cost of condoms, and increasing physical accessibility to condoms (brown, pennylegion, & hillard, 1997. The debate over making condoms available to new york city high school students is laced with elements of class, race and sexual life style, not just religion, and it raises fundamental questions about what the mission of the schools ought to be. Maryland’s largest school system will offer condoms in the health rooms of more than 20 high schools, with several district leaders describing the need as urgent amid a spike in sexually. These students were also twice as likely to use condoms as students in schools without the condom availability program (blake et al, 2003.
There are three main controversial approaches to reducing rates of sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancy among north american teenagers: abstinence-only programs, safer sex education, and making condoms available in schools. Schools to give condoms to under-16s by ben leapman, evening standard secondary schools will hand out free contraceptives to under-16s in an attempt to tackle teenage pregnancies.
According to a study published this month, over the course of just a few years, 22 districts in 12 states implemented this kind of program, affecting roughly 484 schools in about two-thirds of the schools, kids had to go through mandatory counseling to get the condoms.
School condom availability programs have been promoted as a promising approach for increasing condom use among students, for reducing the risk of infections with the human immunodeficiency virus and with other sexually transmitted diseases and for preventing unintended pregnancy. Some parents, politicians, and educators have questioned whether making condoms available should be the job of the school they argue that school should be a place for learning math and reading and science, not how to put on a condom.