Teen Pregnancy Prevention Replication Study: Short-Term Impacts of Reducing the Risk

This report presents interim findings from the evaluation of Reducing the Risk, a sexual health curriculum developed in the early 1990s to help prevent pregnancy and reduce sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) in adolescents. The study examined data from three different replications of Reducing the Risk, pooling the data to examine the overall program impact. These findings are based on a short-term follow-up survey administered to study participants twelve months after they enrolled in the study. Early findings suggest that Reducing the Risk was effective in increasing knowledge about sexual risk behavior and producing more positive attitudes toward avoiding risk. However, there were no overall impacts on reported sexual risk behaviors. Site-level analyses revealed a positive effect on the behavior of students in one study site, with fewer youth in the intervention group having had sex in the last 90 days compared with youth in the control group. These are interim findings; a final assessment of the program’s effectiveness will come from the findings of the longer-term follow-up survey at 24 months.