September 16, 2006
Prepared
by Norman A. Constantine, PhD
California
Adolescent Sexual Health Policy Project
Center for
Research on Adolescent Health and Development, Public Health Institute,
Oakland, CA
It is not widely known nor easily determined that many
Community Challenge Grant Program grantees have implemented abstinence-only
programs as part of their state-funded grants. This summary is to pull together
the available data on this question.
For
the CCG first cycle 1997-1999 cohort, grantees had considerable choice in the type of
programs implemented, with most grantees serving multiple populations of youth,
and implementing some combination of abstinence-only, comprehensive
sexuality education, or youth development focused programs across
their different populations served. According to Brindis & Cagampang (2001),
for this cohort a majority (59%, n=66) of the 111 funded lead agencies who
participated in the evaluation implemented an abstinence-only program as part
of their grant. This represent nearly a third (29%, n=66) of the 231 individual
programs implemented. In addition, 75% of lead agencies offered a comprehensive
sexuality education program (36% of the all individual programs), and 74%
offered a youth development program (35% of all programs).
The
CCG evaluation team reported visiting two first-cycle abstinence-only sites,
and found that at both of these sites sexually active high school students were
receiving abstinence-only programs, and that at one of these two sites pregnant
and parenting teens were receiving abstinence-only programs. While this is not
necessarily representative of all 66 CCG first cycle abstinence-only programs,
there is no indication from the information provided in the evaluation report
that is not.
For the second cohort, funded from 1999 to 2002 (and with
extensions through 2005), no information is publicly available as the state has
not released the 2003 evaluation report.
For the current cohort, funded
from 2005 to 2010, grant applicants were required to propose either
one of two prevention education strategies -- abstinence-only (now officially
referred to as abstinence-focused), or comprehensive sexuality education. In
addition, regardless of this choice, all applicants were required to select
several additional supportive strategies, such as male involvement, service
learning, mentoring, etc.
The ACLU of Northern California obtained information about
successful grant applicants in this cohort from the California Department of
Health Services via a formal Public Records Act request. From these data, Burlingame
(2006) found that one quarter (25%, n=29) of the 117 funded lead agencies had
selected the abstinence-focused (i.e., abstinence-only) prevention strategy.
Because grantees typically serve a variety of youth populations, some chose to
provide abstinence-only programming to one group of youth, and comprehensive to
another. Of the 29 grantees that chose the abstinence-focused strategy, 59%
(n=17) also provided comprehensive sexuality education to certain youth,
typically older or parenting adolescents, either by choosing the comprehensive
strategy in addition to the abstinence-focused strategy, or by providing
comprehensive information through a supportive strategy. Forty-one percent
(n=12) provided no comprehensive sexuality education to any youth.
Numerous specific examples of biased and medically
inaccurate components of some of these CCG-funded programs were provided by
Burlingame (2006). For example:
The Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) have stated for over five years that the only way to reduce unplanned
pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases is to delay the age of sexual
onset and reduce the number of lifetime sexual partners. -- AWAIT & FIND application
for CCG grant, p. 12
Brindis, C. & Cagampang, H. H. (2001). Community Challenge
Grant Program Evaluation: The First Cycle (1997 – 1999). San Francisco: UCSF
Institute for Health Policy Studies.
Burlingame, P. (2006). Community Challenge Grants 2005
Abstinence-Focused Grantees and Examples of Bias and Inaccuracies. San Francisco:
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.