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AJPH First Look, published online ahead of print Jul 27, 2006
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September 2006, Vol 96, No. 9 | American Journal of Public Health 1561
© 2006 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2006.094151

IMAGES OF HEALTH

Images Against Teen Pregnancy

Robert Sember, Aleisha Kropf and Diane di Mauro, PhD

Robert Sember and Diane di Mauro are with the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY. Aleisha Kropf is with Kropf Design, Bloomington, Ind.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Aleisha Kropf, Kropf Design, 3502 N Valleyview Dr, Bloomington, IN 47404 (e-mail: slappy{at}insightbb.com).

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON’S 1996 welfare reform legislation, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Act, included an initial allocation of $50 million to fund abstinence-until-marriage education programs in the nation’s public schools. This provision was a triumph for social conservatives who had spent 3 decades campaigning to have schools teach sexuality from an exclusively conservative moral vantage point, if at all. Since passage of the bill, every state except California has adopted abstinence-only curricula.

Also in 1996, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy was founded, with the mission "to improve the well-being of children, youth, and families by reducing teen pregnancy." The organization’s moderate position is reflected in its media campaigns, which guide youths both to delay or reduce sexual activity and to use condoms if they are sexually active. In Image 1Go, a negative and potentially even stigmatizing label is used to goad young people into thinking responsibly about sexuality. Image 2Go, the winning entry in the annual "Take a Stand Against Teen Pregnancy" contest, accomplishes something that is extremely difficult in the context of current controversies concerning childhood and adolescent sexuality: it acknowledges that sexuality is a fundamental and central component of life by asserting that the brain is critically important to sex. Finally, the directness of the message and graphics in Image 3Go is notable: the comparison between the cost of condoms and the costs associated with caring for an infant is starkly presented.


Figure 1
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  		Image 1—— CHEAP ("Condoms are CHEAP. If we’d used one I wouldn’t have to tell my parents I’m pregnant.").

 

Figure 2
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  		Image 2—— The Brain ("Question: When it comes to sex, what is the most important part of your body? Answer: Your brain.").

 

Figure 3
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  		Image 3—— OR (the cost of condoms OR the cost of caring for an infant).

 





This Article
Right arrow Extract Freely available
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow An erratum has been published
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
AJPH.2006.094151v1
96/9/1561    most recent
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow Purchase Article
Right arrow View Shopping Cart
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sember, R.
Right arrow Articles by di Mauro, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sember, R.
Right arrow Articles by di Mauro, D.
Related Collections
Right arrow Adolescent Health
Right arrow Other Birth Control
Right arrow Sexual Health

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