Today the CDC released a report on the effectiveness of various approaches to teen pregnancy and HIV/STI prevention. The study was conducted by the Task Force on Community Preventative Services, an independent panel convened by the CDC. The report suggests that such prevention programs are most effective when they combine a clear message on the benefits of postponing sexual activity with medically accurate and comprehensive information on how to reduce the risks of pregnancy and STIs among teens who are having sex--including the use of contraception.

Most of the American public gets this. It's common sense. Yet, today's results are debated by many, with some saying they prove comprehensive sex ed programs work and abstinence education programs don't, and some saying the reverse. This debate arises in part because comprehensive sex ed and abstinence-only actually encompass many, many different programs, with varying levels of effectiveness behind them. The debate is fueled as much by ideology as it is by science and will likely continue for some time to come.

For those practitioners, educators and parents looking for a common-sense way forward in the meantime, I suggest focusing on specific programs rather than programmatic approaches. Some, but not all, comprehensive programs have rigorous evidence of positive impacts. These have been well-summarized. To date, none of the abstinence-only curricula have this level of evidence behind them, although that is not to say there may not be some in the future.

Efforts have their best chance of success if they stay grounded in science, whatever the state of the science is at the time. It's also important to realize that, while the reproductive health education we provide our teens in school is critical, no curriculum, regardless of its underlying ideology, is a silver bullet. Communities that truly care about preventing teen pregnancy need a comprehensive approach that includes not only schools, but also parents, community leaders, the media, and teens themselves.

This piece is cross-posted on RH Reality Check.

There is reason to be concerned on this 8th National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The extraordinary decline in teen pregnancy and childbearing - one of the nation's preeminent success stories of the past two decades - is in danger of being reversed. Cue sober music.

From the early 1990s, until 2007, the teen pregnancy rate in the United States plummeted 38 percent and the teen birth rate declined by about one-third. State and local level trends mirrored national trends almost everywhere: Over the past decade, we've seen declining rates of teen pregnancy in all 50 states and among all racial and ethnic groups - extraordinary progress on an issue many once considered intractable.

However, the most recent news on this front has not been as positive. After 14 straight years of declines, the national teen birth rate increased 5 percent between 2005 and 2007 and many states are reporting statistically significant increases in their respective rates of early childbearing as well.

President Obama's proposed budget contains the following language:

"The budget supports State, community-based, and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence-based models. The program will fund models that stress the importance of abstinence while providing medically-accurate and age-appropriate information to youth who have already become sexually active."

Stay tuned, more in due course...

As a person of faith, I can't help but snicker every time something makes me remember how utterly confused God-fearing people get about issues of sex and pregnancy.  From "Jesus Camp" (a variation of which I proudly attended) to purity balls (which I proudly did NOT attend) to married people sex-a-thons, I count myself among the young people in this country who received mixed, and sometimes conflicting, messages about sex for the first 18 years of my life.

Margaret Talbot at The New Yorker sums up my childhood pretty well in her recent article, "Red Sex, Blue Sex."  Despite the discomfort that pious parents and their children experience when it comes to trying to understand their sexuality (and in some cases, trying to convince them that it's not even there until their wedding night), one strange phenomenon is that we are supposed to be excited when a baby results from this otherwise banned activity.