Short Takes

CPFH Promotes Teen Abstinence, Pregnancy Prevention

The Center for Population and Family Health has implemented a curriculum-based pregnancy prevention program focusing on abstinence for 6th graders at IS 143, a junior high school in Washington Heights where over 10 percent of the 7th- and 8th-graders admitted to being recently sexually active. The program is funded by the New York State Department of Health.“The majority of sixth graders are not sexually active, but this changes dramatically by eighth grade,” said Lorraine Tiezzi, director of Columbia’s Community Health and Education Program, or CHEP, which designed and now manages the program. “Sixth grade is a critical time to reach young people with a curriculum that stresses normal psychosexual development and human sexuality.”

CHEP chose IS 143 for the new curriculum because the school has the highest number of sexually active students among CHEP’s four junior high school health clinics. The average age of the sexually active there is 12.8 years old, and six pregnancies were recorded last school year. However, 66 percent of sexually active females at the school said they didn’t want to continue having sex.

The new pregnancy prevention program reaches out into the community in several ways. for example, CHEP has teamed up with “280 Dreamers,” a local sports organization, to provide track and field and aerobics. Mothers and their daughters in the pregnancy prevention program can even practice aerobics together.

“The addition of a sports/activity component to the program has the potential, particularly among girls, to enhance their sense of competence and control,” said Judy Lipshutz, CHEP’s Health Education Coordinator who oversees the new program.

In addition, students will work with the Children’s Arts & Science Workshops, a local arts organization, to develop public service announcements and posters that address abstinence and reflect sexuality issues from the point of view of teenagers and pre-teens.

Highlighting the vital need for such a program, CPFH director James McCarthy, Ph.D., notes that, “Sexual activity as early as junior high school is usually a red flag for other high risk behaviors, such as substance abuse and assaultive behavior. Confronting sexuality issues in sixth grade, if not earlier, is essential in providing young people with a healthy future.”

CPFH has also opened its sixth school-based clinic, this one at Harlem’s School for Pregnant Teens. The new clinic serves 300 adolescents ages 12 to 21 from sections of New York City that have high rates of infant mortality, low birth weight babies, and late or no prenatal care.

The clinic plans to increase the availability and quality of maternity care, post-partum care and reproductive health care; develop and implement primary prevention programs targeting young women and their partners at high-risk for a second birth; and develop and implement innovative programs for public education and community organizing.