Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact [PDF]

Name of Program: Education Now And Babies Later (ENABL) Initiative

Funding Source: California state legislature

Funds Allocated: The California state legislature appropriated $15 million for ENABL's first three-year funding cycle.[3]

Program Reach/Program Components: California's Office of Family Planning administered California ENABL, including 28 projects managed by numerous local organizations. Collectively, the program delivered the curriculum to 187,000 youth in schools and community settings in 31 California counties. At the time, it was the largest statewide pregnancy prevention effort ever initiated.[10]

ENABL used the Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI) curriculum (without a contraceptive component). The curriculum focused on the risks of early sexual involvement and was delivered in five sessions, each 45 to 60 minutes in length. The intervention included class discussion, group activities, a video (in some settings), and some role-playing. Other ENABL components included referral for health and social services, school- and community-wide activities, and a statewide media campaign.[10]

Target Population: Middle or junior high school, 7th and 8th graders

Timing of Program/Evaluation: Officially launched in June 1992, ENABL was terminated in February 1996, because evaluation showed the program to be ineffective. Data collection and analysis occurred from 1992 through 1994.[3]

Evaluation Design: Pretest survey and follow-up surveys three and 17 months after the program; participants included 10,600 youth who received parental permission to participate and who were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups in schools and community-based organizations statewide; 7,340 students completed baseline and 17-month follow-up survey; 3,834 of these also completed the three-month follow-up. The control group received instruction in another topic (not sexual health related).[10]

Findings: Short-term (at three-month follow-up): The intervention had no impact on seven beliefs and attitudes, on four measures of intentions to have sex, or on five measures of sexual behavior. The intervention had a small, positive impact among some groups on several attitudes related to sexual decision making, on perceptions about the media's presentation of sexual images, and on feelings of self-efficacy and intentions to refuse sex. "These attitudinal shifts did not translate into positive behavioral changes."[10] [p. 106-7]

Long-term: At 17 months, the intervention has no significant and positive effect upon any mediating variable [attitudes and intentions], upon sexual or contraceptive outcomes, or upon pregnancy or STD rates."[10] [p. 106-7]

"Youth in treatment and control groups were equally likely to have become sexually active, and youth in treatment groups were not less likely than youths in control groups to report a pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection."[10] [p. 100]

Significant Quotes from Authors of the Evaluation Study:

• Overall we feel it is unlikely that the interventions produced programmatically important effects that were not detected. In the context of a strong design and methodology, we examined many subgroups of youth and searched at length for significant, positive and consistent behavioral effects. We found insufficient change in the mediating variables to suggest that there could be significant change in behavioral outcomes.[10] [p.107]
• Finally, behavioral results frequently were not in the desired direction, were not programmatically significant and were not close to statistical significance.[10] [p.107]
• In Atlanta, PSI was implemented in addition to a five-session reproductive health unit that included basic human sexuality, decision making and contraception, and the [original] evaluation actually measured the impact of both PSI and this five-session reproductive health unit.[10] [p. 108]

*This program is the only one included in this document that was not implemented with funds from Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social Security Act ("Welfare Reform"). Advocates for Youth included California ENABL in this document, however, as it was the first evaluation to analyze the impact of a statewide abstinence-only program.

Source/Citation:
Hauser D. Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact. Washington, DC: Advocates for Youth, 2004.