Sex Education Correlating with STI Rates Througout Counties in Florida

Abstract

This study’s goal was to discover the impact that varying types of high school sex education curriculums had on the rate of which their alumni ages 19-27 in 2018 contracted bacterial sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) throughout counties in Florida. The study was able to establish results that communicated which programs were most effective in preventing the transmission of STDs in comparison to the ones that were least effective. A meta-analysis of the amount of bacterial STD cases in each of four different counties in Florida as well as their corresponding sex education curriculum was used to discover the paper’s outcome. The different curriculums analyzed in this paper include abstinence-only, abstinence-plus, and comprehensive. Abstinence-only based programs teach students that refraining from all sexual activity until marriage is the sole moral way of preventing STD transmission and generally does not go over other methods of contraceptives. Abstinence-Plus programs teach students about methods of contraception and how to prevent STDs, but still preach that remaining abstinent is the correct and moral route to go down. The results showed that Lafayette County and Martin County had the least amount of bacterial STD cases among their alumni ages 19-27 yet used the most strict program (abstinence-only), Orange County had the most amount of bacterial STD cases among their alumni and used the second most strict program(abstinence-plus), and Polk County’s amount of bacterial STD cases fell under Orange County but above Lafayette County and Martin County; however they used the least strict program (comprehensive).