Quality sexual health education (SHE) provides students with the knowledge and skills to help them be healthy and avoid human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and unintended pregnancy. A SHE curriculum includes medically accurate, developmentally appropriate, and culturally relevant content and skills that target key behavioral outcomes and promote healthy sexual development. The curriculum is age-appropriate and planned across grade levels to provide information about health risk behaviors and experiences. Sexual health education should be consistent with scientific research and best practices; reflect the diversity of student experiences and identities; and align with school, family, and community priorities.
Quality sexual health education programs share many characteristics. These programs:
- Are taught by well-qualified and highly-trained teachers and school staff
- Use strategies that are relevant and engaging for all students
- Address the health needs of all students, including the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth
- Connect students to sexual health and other health services at school or in the community
- Engage parents, families, and community partners in school programs
- Foster positive relationships between adolescents and important adults.
What are the benefits of delivering sexual health education?
Promoting and implementing well-designed SHE programs positively impacts student health in a variety of ways. Students who participate in these programs are more likely to:
- Delay initiation of sexual intercourse
- Have fewer sex partners
- Have fewer experiences of unprotected sex
- Increase their use of protection, specifically condoms
- Improve their academic performance.
In an age-appropriate sequence, these concepts can be built upon in middle and high school so that young people gain the knowledge and skills they need to develop a healthy sense of sexuality, which includes the ability to avoid unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections throughout their lives.
Conclusion
The results indicate the importance of educating young people and their parents about sexual health. We recommend that the sexual health educational needs of university students in health sciences should not be overlooked; these students have similar needs to those of students in other fields.
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