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It's Your Game: Keep It Real

An Evidence-Based Practice

Description

It's Your Game: Keep It Real is a middle school sexual education program in Southeast Texas that aims to reduce teen pregnancy, prevent STI transmission, and delay teen sexual activity. The program instructs students about the physical and emotional changes that occur during puberty, the use of condoms and contraception, and the place of sex in a healthy relationship. The program spans two years, during which students attend 12, 50-minute lessons that incorporate multimedia instruction, games, and group activities. In the group activities, students role play and discuss sexual health topics. In addition to the classroom program, students are asked to maintain a journal and complete personal activities.

Goal / Mission

The goal of It's Your Game: Keep It Real is to reduce teen pregnancy, prevent STI transmission, and delay teen sexual activity in middle school students.

Impact

Participants in the It’s Your Game: Keep It Real intervention program were less likely to initiate sex by the ninth grade when compared to the control group.

Results / Accomplishments

In a randomized controlled trial, nearly 30% of students in the control group initiated sex by the ninth grade compared to 23.4% of students in the intervention group. Therefore, students in the control group were 1.29 times more likely (p<.05) than students in the intervention group to initiate sex by the ninth grade. The program was particularly successful for Hispanic students, for whom the control group was 1.64 times (p<.05) more likely than the intervention group to initiate sex by ninth grade.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
University of Texas Prevention Research Center
Primary Contact
Susan Tortolero
Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Health Promotion and Behavioral Science, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
(713) 500-9634
susan.tortolero@uth.tmc.edu
Topics
Health / Adolescent Health
Health / Family Planning
Organization(s)
University of Texas Prevention Research Center
Source
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Date of publication
Aug 2009
Location
Texas
For more details
http://jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(09)00247-X...
http://www.cdc.gov/prc/stories-prevention-research...
Target Audience
Teens

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Related Content for: It's Your Game: Keep It Real

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.