Results add substantial support for age-appropriate school-based sexuality education starting at the elementary school level, the new National Sexuality Education Standards, and funding to support evidence-based abstinence-plus or comprehensive sexuality education.
The National Teacher-Preparation Standards for Sexuality Education represent an unprecedented unified effort to enable prospective health education teachers to become competent in teaching methodology, theory, practice of pedagogy, content, and skills, specific to sexuality education. Higher education will play a key role in ensuring the success of these standards.
Consistent with previous studies, males, minorities, and older students are more likely to engage in sexual risk behaviors. There is also variation in the percentage of students engaging in sexual behaviors across locations. Sexual risk reduction education is important for middle school youth, particularly for minorities, males and those from southern and/or larger, urban cities as those are the populations with generally higher sexual risk behaviors.
Results document support for offering sexual health services through SBHCs. These findings may benefit other communities looking to implement similar clinics. Such services have great potential for positively impacting the sexual health of youth.
BACKGROUND
Depression continues to be a public health crisis for young adults. For high school students, past research has identified trauma as a significant predictor of depression. Congruent with the theory of cumulative stress, the present study hypothesized that the effect of sexual assault on depression would be stronger among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) students than among their straight peers.
METHODS
Using the Youth Risk Behavior Survey completed by students attending Duval County Public Schools in Florida (N = 3053), this study used secondary data analysis to conduct 2 regression analyses, one for boys and one for girls.
RESULTS
LGB status was associated with 3‐fold increase in the odds of reporting depression for both boys and girls. History of sexual assault was associated with a significant increase in reporting depression. There was also a significant interaction effect between sexual orientation and history of sexual assault among male students only (p < .05). Contrary to the hypothesis, the effect was stronger among straight boys than among LGB boys.
CONCLUSION
Minority students continue to evidence greater risks for depression. Opportunities for systemic changes to address these include training teachers, banning conversion therapy, and implementing comprehensive sex education.
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