(Press-News.org) HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – A Marshall University study found that a virtual sex education tool improved reproductive health knowledge scores and measures of self-efficacy among adolescent girls.
The findings, published last month in Sex Education, a leading international journal on sex, sexuality and relationships in education, found that sexual health knowledge scores on a validated scale increased among participants, along with improved measures of self-efficacy regarding birth control, healthy relationships and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention. Notably, a greater proportion of participants reported improved confidence in obtaining birth control, recognizing an unhealthy relationship and testing for STIs.
A research team at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine conducted a baseline assessment of sexual health knowledge among adolescent females ages 14 to 18. Participants also answered questions about past experiences with school sex education programs and self-efficacy. They then completed the online curriculum available at www.marshallteentalk.org, which covers a range of sexual health topics presented through short, animated videos. A post-survey then reassessed participants’ sexual health knowledge, along with the same measures of self-efficacy.
“Adolescents use websites and social media for sexual health information; therefore, there is a great need for accurate, evidence-based online reproductive health tools,” said Marshall Health Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecologist Jennie L. Yoost, M.D., M.Sc., an associate professor at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and senior author of the study. “Marshall Teen Talk was designed specifically to provide local adolescents an accessible and accurate resource for reproductive health that they can trust. This study validates the website as an effective teaching tool.”
In the current study, 30.3% of participants reported they had never had sex education classes in school. The online curriculum was overwhelmingly favored by study participants, with 94% reporting the information was presented in a way that was easy to understand, and 93.9% reported they would recommend the website to a friend.
In addition to Yoost, the research team included Dani Roth; Emma Nellhaus, M.D.; Morgan Ruley; Ariana Hess, M.D.; and Rajan Lamichhane, Ph.D. The team will expand future studies to include male and nonbinary adolescents, as well as partnerships with teachers. As adolescents in rural areas are less likely to seek out sexual health services, this website can also potentially serve our community by linking individuals to specific health resources and clinical needs.
Marshall Teen Talk was established in 2014 by Yoost as an after-school telehealth outreach to rural West Virginia high schools. Since that time, the program evolved into an evidence-based online curriculum available at www.marshallteentalk.org that can be completed in approximately 45 minutes and can be used as a supplement to classroom learning. The project was funded through rural health initiative grants from the Robert C. Byrd Center for Rural Health at Marshall University with funding from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and private donors. Website design and animation were developed by Bulldog Creative Services.
To view the article in its entirety, visit “A virtual sex education tool improved reproductive health knowledge among adolescent girls” by Roth et al., please visit https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2023.2203909.
###
END
American Geophysical Union
25 May 2023
AGU Release No. 22
For Immediate Release
This press release and accompanying multimedia are available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/no-till-revolution-could-stop-midwest-topsoil-loss-in-its-tracks/
No-till revolution could stop Midwest topsoil loss in its tracks
If Midwestern farms all adopted low-intensity tilling practices or stopped tilling entirely, the erosion of critical topsoil could decrease by 95% in the next 100 years, new study finds
AGU press contact:
Rebecca ...
Less than two percent of the human genome codes for proteins, with the rest being noncoding and likely helping with gene regulation. Mutations in the noncoding genome often trigger trait changes that cause disease or disability by altering gene expression. However, it can be hard for scientists to track down which of numerous variants associated with a disease or other complex trait are the causal ones and to understand the mechanism of their effects. Researchers at the Brigham developed a new computational approach that hones in on small regions of the noncoding genome that genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified ...
With a warmer climate creating more humid conditions in the Northeast, extreme precipitation events — defined as about 1.5 or more inches of heavy rainfall or melted snowfall in a day — are projected to increase in the Northeast by 52% by the end of the century, according to a new Dartmouth study.
The findings are published in Climatic Change.
"As climate change brings warmer temperatures, you have more water vapor in the atmosphere, which creates the right conditions for extreme precipitation," says first author Christopher J. Picard '23, an earth sciences major and undergraduate researcher in the Applied Hydroclimatology Group ...
A little-known bacterium — a distant cousin of the microbes that cause tuberculosis and leprosy — is emerging as a public health threat capable of causing severe lung infections among vulnerable populations, those with compromised immunity or reduced lung function.
Recent research found that various strains of the bacterium, Mycobacterium abscessus, were genetically similar, stoking fears that it was spreading from person to person.
But a new study by Harvard Medical School researchers published ...
An experimental “decoy” provided long-term protection from infection by the pandemic virus in mice, a new study finds.
Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the work is based on how the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, uses its spike protein to attach to a protein on the surface of the cells that line human lungs. Once attached to this cell surface protein, called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the virus spike pulls the cell close, enabling the virus to enter the cell and hijack its machinery to make viral copies.
Earlier in the pandemic, pharmaceutical ...
Plant growth is driven by light and supplied with energy through photosynthesis by green leaves. It is the same for roots that grow in the dark – they receive the products of photosynthesis, in particular sucrose, i.e. sugar, via the central transportation pathways of phloem. Dr. Stefan Kircher and Prof. Dr. Peter Schopfer from the University of Freiburg’s Faculty of Biology have now shown in experiments using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) that the sucrose not only guarantees the supply of carbohydrates to the roots, it also acts as a signal transmitter for ...
One of the primary drivers of climate change is excess greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Mitigating climate change in the coming century will require both decarbonization — electrifying the power grid or reducing fossil fuel-guzzling transportation — and removing already existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a process called carbon dioxide removal.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Yale University are proposing a novel pathway through which coastal ecosystem restoration can permanently capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Seagrass and mangroves — known as blue carbon ecosystems — naturally capture ...
HOUSTON – (May 30, 2023) – Conventional implantable medical devices designed for brain stimulation are often too rigid and bulky for what is one of the body’s softest and most delicate tissues.
To address the problem, Rice University engineers have developed minimally invasive, ultraflexible nanoelectrodes that could serve as an implanted platform for administering long-term, high-resolution stimulation therapy.
According to a study published in Cell Reports, the tiny implantable devices formed stable, long-lasting and seamless tissue-electrode ...
DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at SLEEP 2023 found that teens with greater variability in their sleep patterns have a higher risk for school-related problems.
Results show that the teens with greater night-to-night variability in the time they fell asleep were 42% more likely to have been suspended or expelled in the past two years, 29% more likely to have received a D or F in any course, and 26% more likely to have ever failed a course. The likelihood of suspension or expulsion was also 31% higher in teens with greater variability in sleep duration.
“Variability in sleep duration and later sleep ...
Today’s substance use prevention efforts ignore individual genetic risk, but Rutgers research suggests DNA test results may eventually enhance prevention and treatment and improve outcomes.
Investigators recruited 325 college students, provided them with varying levels of information about alcohol use disorder and how genetics affect addiction risk and asked them how they would react to learning they had high, medium and low genetic tendencies toward alcoholism.
The results provided two significant supports for eventually using real genetic risk scores in actual addiction prevention efforts. First, participants understood what those scores indicated; they recognized that higher ...
