Many sex ed teachers may lack training

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A sizable minority of sex education teachers does not cover all of the basics, and many lack training to teach sex ed at all, a survey of teachers in one state suggests.

In a study of sex ed teachers at 201 Illinois schools, researchers found that one-third of teachers did not give comprehensive instruction -- defined as covering the four basic topics of abstinence, birth control, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

In addition, 30 percent said they had no special training in teaching sex education, and these teachers were less likely to teach a comprehensive course.

"For this study, we set the bar for comprehensiveness fairly low relative to what most medical and public health organizations recommend," lead researcher Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau said in a statement, "and one out of three programs failed to clear it."

The findings suggest that doctors caring for teenagers may need to "fill gaps" in their knowledge of sexual health, according to Lindau and her colleagues at the University of Chicago.

They report the study results in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The study involved 335 sex ed teachers at Illinois middle schools and high schools. Lindau and her colleagues defined "comprehensive sex education" as courses teaching both abstinence and contraception, as well as information on HIV and other STDs.

They left out a fifth, more controversial topic often recommended by public health experts: giving students information on where to go for sexual health services, condoms and birth control.

Overall, two-thirds of teachers met this more relaxed definition of comprehensive education. In general, the most frequently covered topics were HIV and STDs, which about 96 percent of teachers said they addressed. Eighty-nine percent of teachers covered the topic of abstinence-until-marriage.