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Draw the Line/Respect the Line

An Evidence-Based Practice

Description

Draw the Line/Respect the Line is a 3-year, school-based HIV, other STD, and pregnancy prevention program for youths in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. The program includes 20 lessons delivered by trained health educators.

The sixth-grade curriculum includes 5 lessons that feature limit setting and refusal skills in nonsexual situations (e.g., pressures to steal, lie, or use drugs). The seventh-grade curriculum includes 8 lessons that addressed determining personal limits regarding sexual intercourse, understanding the consequences of unplanned sexual intercourse (including STDs and pregnancy), using intra- and interpersonal skills (identifying risky situations and refusal skills) to maintain limits, and respecting others’ limits. The eighth-grade curriculum includes 7 lessons and features an HIV-infected speaker, a condom demonstration plus a brief activity on other methods of protection, and practice of refusal skills in dating contexts.

Goal / Mission

The primary aim of Draw the Line/Respect the Line is to reduce the number of students who initiate or have sexual intercourse and to increase condom use among those students who do have sexual intercourse.

Results / Accomplishments

The intervention delayed sexual initiation among boys, but not girls. From sixth through ninth grades, boys in the intervention schools were less likely to report sexual activity than boys in the control schools (p=0.01).

Boys in the intervention condition exhibited significantly greater HIV and condom-related knowledge than control students (p<0.001), had more positive attitudes toward not having sex (p=.003), perceived fewer peer norms supporting sex (p=0.001), had stronger sexual limits (p=0.004), and were less likely to place themselves in situations that could lead to sexual behaviors (p<0.001).

Girls in the intervention group showed significantly greater HIV and condom knowledge than control group girls (p<0.05); girls in the intervention condition perceived fewer peer norms supporting sexual intercourse than did girls in the control condition (p =0.02); and girls in the intervention group reported significantly fewer incidents of unwanted sexual advances at the eighth-grade follow-up than did girls in the control group (p=0.02).

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
ETR Associates and University of California, San Francisco
Primary Contact
Karin K. Coyle, PhD
ETR Associates
4 Carbonero Way
Scotts Valley, CA 95066–2400
karinc@etr.org
http://caps.ucsf.edu/resources/project-websites/dr...
Topics
Health / Adolescent Health
Health / Family Planning
Organization(s)
ETR Associates and University of California, San Francisco
Source
American Journal of Public Health
Date of publication
May 2004
Date of implementation
1997
Location
Northern California
For more details
Target Audience
Teens, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Healthy Marin