Original articleLong-Term Effects of Drug Prevention on Risky Sexual Behavior Among Young Adults
Section snippets
Participants
To assess Project ALERT's long-term effects on risky sexual behavior, we used data from 1901 21-year-olds who were sexually active but not married at the time of data administration and had participated in an experimental trial of the two drug prevention programs that took place in 55 schools from 45 South Dakota communities. We focused on unmarried young adults because lack of condom use among married persons frequently reflects a decision to have children and thus is considerably less likely
Results
Risky sexual behavior was common in our sample of unmarried, sexually active young adults. Seventy-one percent of the control group reported inconsistent condom use, 50% had multiple sex partners in the last year, and 32% said they had engaged in unprotected sex because of using alcohol or other drugs.
Table 2 shows program effects on risky sexual behavior for young adults who were exposed to Project ALERT (either the core or the expanded version) compared to the control group. Young adults who
Discussion
These results show that a drug prevention program for adolescents can have long-term effects on risky sexual behavior, reducing its prevalence among young adults 5 to 7 years after exposure to the curriculum. Compared to their counterparts in the control condition, youth exposed to Project ALERT were significantly less likely as young adults to engage in sex with multiple partners and to have unprotected sex because of using alcohol or other drugs. Although the effects are modest, they indicate
Financial Disclosure
The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.
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2012, Journal of Substance Abuse TreatmentCitation Excerpt :Efforts to prevent young people from using alcohol or other substances or engaging in unplanned, unprotected, or impulsive sexual intercourse remain a daunting challenge. Some evidence supports the efficacy of brief cognitive–behavioral interventions designed to reduce sexual risk behaviors and substance use among multiproblem youth (e.g., Schmiege, Broaddus, Levin, & Bryan, 2009), and school-based primary prevention strategies have demonstrated promising, yet modest, results in reducing risk related to substance use and sexual behaviors over time (e.g., Ellickson, McCaffrey, & Klein, 2009). Achieving significant reductions in targeted risk behavior outcomes via primary and secondary prevention efforts is likely to be even more difficult among youth manifesting co-occurring psychiatric and behavioral disorders.
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2019, Journal of Pediatric NursingCitation Excerpt :Ellickson, McCaffrey, and Klein's longitudinal study tracked students through an alcohol and drug prevention program in middle school and high school years and their actual alcohol and drug use in college, as well as sexual behaviors in college (2009). They found that young adults who participated in the Project ALERT drug prevention program were significantly less likely than their peers to report having unprotected sex because of drug use as well as less likely to have multiple partners (Ellickson et al., 2009). In addition to examining middle and high school prevention programs, researchers efforts to examine and reduce risky behaviors in college students focus both on individual level characteristics such as personality, as well as larger system level characteristics including campus culture.
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Data collection and analysis were supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant R01DA11246). The BEST Foundation provided funds for teacher materials and training. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation supported the original program's development, evaluation and revision.