The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Give sex education policy a chance to work Posted: 14 Jan 2014 06:39 PM PST
Part of me still wonders whether if public health messaging had focused on "don't mix alcohol and heroin" instead of "don't take heroin", Cory Monteith would still be alive. There are many parts of public health policy that at first seem counter-intuitive. Needle-and-syringe exchange programmes (NSEP), for example. There is still a wide section of society that believes NSEP encourages injecting drug use, when in fact people who inject drugs will inject whether or not sterile needles are available. Perceptions like this exist even though decades of evidence prove that programmes like NSEP are more effective than police interventions in terms of reducing HIV and getting drug users in touch with health workers and people other than other drug users. But this is not an article about drug use. That is a story for another day. This is an article about effective and rights-based reproductive health and sex education policy, ignited from an article in the Malay Mail Online which talks about a module of learning to be introduced in September 2014, which will, among others:
First, a non-academic observation: GAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Second, we're aiming towards developed-nation status in 2020. For this to happen, we've been focusing on economic advancement and geopolitical factors and trade relationships. But many, including the public health sector, have forgotten that we need developed-nation public health laws and policies. And by that, I mean public health laws that are based on evidence and human rights and prevent other significant unintended negative health impacts. Let's look at the evidence, then. Abstinence-based sex education Does it work? Mónica Silva in a 2002 article in the journal Health Education Research conducted a meta-analysis of different interventions in American schools over 15 years and found that there was a "very small overall effect of the interventions in abstinent behaviour". Similarly in 2008, Kohler, Manhart and Lafferty in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that abstinence-only education "did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse" and that adolescents who received comprehensive sex education (including safe sex education) were less likely to report teen pregnancy. Segregation based on risk of sexual activity The first question I'm going to ask is whether there's been a human rights assessment on this particular aspect of the programme, based on both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child. I'm guessing no, because any such human rights impact assessment would probably show that this increases stigmatising teenagers with partners, isolating them and causing emotional distress. It's incredibly important to consider this study conducted in South Africa in 2014 in the journal Sex Education, Society and Learning that showed although teachers there were inclined to promote abstinence, they also saw a prominent role for safe sex education. The authors note that these modalities "might be strategically combined to promote a comprehensive sexuality education that builds a sense of agency and responsibility without alienating young people through moralism". Intriguing? I bet. Also intriguing is the fact that this morning I have already heard an adult comment that this measure is a "state-imposed scale of sluttiness", which is horrifying, judgmental, and entirely unjustified, but based on the current wave of conservatism, is not entirely unforeseeable a label. I'm going to leave you with these thoughts and beseech the authorities to have a think about evidence-based and rights-based health policy, as counter-intuitive as it may seem. – January 15, 2014. * This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider. | |
| Give sex education policy a chance to work Posted: 14 Jan 2014 06:39 PM PST
Part of me still wonders whether if public health messaging had focused on "don't mix alcohol and heroin" instead of "don't take heroin", Cory Monteith would still be alive. There are many parts of public health policy that at first seem counter-intuitive. Needle-and-syringe exchange programmes (NSEP), for example. There is still a wide section of society that believes NSEP encourages injecting drug use, when in fact people who inject drugs will inject whether or not sterile needles are available. Perceptions like this exist even though decades of evidence prove that programmes like NSEP are more effective than police interventions in terms of reducing HIV and getting drug users in touch with health workers and people other than other drug users. But this is not an article about drug use. That is a story for another day. This is an article about effective and rights-based reproductive health and sex education policy, ignited from an article in the Malay Mail Online which talks about a module of learning to be introduced in September 2014, which will, among others:
First, a non-academic observation: GAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Second, we're aiming towards developed-nation status in 2020. For this to happen, we've been focusing on economic advancement and geopolitical factors and trade relationships. But many, including the public health sector, have forgotten that we need developed-nation public health laws and policies. And by that, I mean public health laws that are based on evidence and human rights and prevent other significant unintended negative health impacts. Let's look at the evidence, then. Abstinence-based sex education Does it work? Mónica Silva in a 2002 article in the journal Health Education Research conducted a meta-analysis of different interventions in American schools over 15 years and found that there was a "very small overall effect of the interventions in abstinent behaviour". Similarly in 2008, Kohler, Manhart and Lafferty in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that abstinence-only education "did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse" and that adolescents who received comprehensive sex education (including safe sex education) were less likely to report teen pregnancy. Segregation based on risk of sexual activity The first question I'm going to ask is whether there's been a human rights assessment on this particular aspect of the programme, based on both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child. I'm guessing no, because any such human rights impact assessment would probably show that this increases stigmatising teenagers with partners, isolating them and causing emotional distress. It's incredibly important to consider this study conducted in South Africa in 2014 in the journal Sex Education, Society and Learning that showed although teachers there were inclined to promote abstinence, they also saw a prominent role for safe sex education. The authors note that these modalities "might be strategically combined to promote a comprehensive sexuality education that builds a sense of agency and responsibility without alienating young people through moralism". Intriguing? I bet. Also intriguing is the fact that this morning I have already heard an adult comment that this measure is a "state-imposed scale of sluttiness", which is horrifying, judgmental, and entirely unjustified, but based on the current wave of conservatism, is not entirely unforeseeable a label. I'm going to leave you with these thoughts and beseech the authorities to have a think about evidence-based and rights-based health policy, as counter-intuitive as it may seem. – January 15, 2014. * This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider. |
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