Examining the impact of state policies on and implementation of school-based sex education on adolescent sexual health outcomes

The Foundation's initiative, New Connections: Bringing Diversity to RWJF Grantmaking and Increasing Secondary Data Analyses, was designed to address needs for data that can inform the Foundation's program planning or measure progress toward its strategic objectives. This research study will explore state-level sex education policies, funding, and implementation in the United States, and relationships between these indicators and adolescent sexual health behaviors and outcomes. Project aims are to: (1) construct a panel dataset comprising state-level sex education policies, funding, implementation, and youth behaviors and health outcomes data; and (2) conduct quantitative analyses to explore correlations among states' sex education policies, federal funding allocations for abstinence education, and implementation of sex education; and youth risk behaviors and sexual health outcomes. The researcher will conduct secondary analyses of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, School Health Profiles, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, and Guttmacher Institute. The researcher's career development activities will include participation in the New Connections Annual Symposium and methodological training (multilevel modeling, analysis of complex survey design, introduction to GIS in public health, and agent-based models for population health) at the Columbia University Summer Institute. Deliverables will include a manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal and two abstracts for conference presentations.