Sexual Health Education

At a glance

  • A quality sexual health education curriculum includes medically accurate, developmentally appropriate, and culturally responsive and inclusive content and teaching strategies.
  • Content should focus on key behavioral outcomes and promote healthy sexual development.
  • Quality curriculum gives students the skills and confidence they need to navigate healthy sexual development and avoid or reduce sexual risk behaviors or experiences.
High school students taking parting talking in the group discussion about sexual health education.

Overview

Quality sexual health education (SHE) helps students in two ways:

  • Students will develop skills and knowledge to help navigate sexual development.
  • They will gain knowledge to avoid or reduce sexual behaviors that increase risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), HIV, and pregnancy.

Sexual health curriculum across grades K–12 should include medically accurate, developmentally appropriate, and culturally responsive and inclusive content. The curriculum promotes healthy sexuality and encourages protective behavioral outcomes

Key to success‎‎‎

Sexual health education should be consistent with scientific research and best practices. It should also reflect the diversity of student lived experiences and identities and align with family, school, and community needs and priorities.

Quality sexual health education programs have many things in common, in that they:

  • Are taught by well-qualified and highly trained teachers and school staff.
  • Use strategies that are relevant, inclusive, and engaging for all students.
  • Address the health needs of all students. This includes students identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+). The curriculum should also address the needs of students from racial and ethnic minority groups, and with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
  • Connect students to sexual health and other health services at school or in the community.
  • Engage parents, caregivers, family, and community partners in school programs.
  • Foster positive relationships between children/adolescents and important adults in their lives.

How schools deliver sexual health education

A quality school health education program helps youth develop skills and knowledge to promote healthy sexuality. The curriculum should also address protective behaviors, aimed at reducing or avoiding sexual risks. It is important that sexual health education promote and support skill development.

Give students time to practice and reflect on skills taught. This helps move them toward independence, critical thinking, and problem-solving to avoid or reduce STIs, HIV, pregnancy, and other health issues.

Quality sexual health education programs teach students how to:

  • Analyze family, peer, and media influences that effect health.
  • Access valid and reliable health information, products, and services (such as STI/HIV testing and treatment).
  • Communicate with family, peers, and teachers about issues that affect health.
  • Make informed and thoughtful decisions about their health.
  • Use goal-setting to support their health.
  • Advocate to promote their health and the health of others.

Benefits of delivering sexual health education to students

Promoting and implementing well-designed sexual health education positively effects student health in a variety of ways. Students who participate in these programs are more likely to:

  • Delay initiation of sexual intercourse.
  • Have fewer sex partners.
  • Have fewer experiences of unprotected sex.
  • Increase their use of protection, specifically condoms.
  • Improve their academic performance.

But education does more than provide skills and knowledge to address sexual behavior.

Quality sexual health education can include information on substance use. This also includes suicide prevention, and how to keep students from committing or being victims of violence. All of these issues place youth at risk for poor physical and mental health, and poor academic outcomes.

Sexual health education in action

Quality sexual health education programs need supportive state and local policies, dedicated instructional time, trained staff, and engaged parents and communities. These programs also require developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and inclusive content.

Key to success‎‎

By law, if your school or district receives federal HIV prevention funding, you need an HIV Materials Review Panel (HIV MRP). This panel will review all HIV-related educational materials. The panel can include members from your School Health Advisory Councils. Their shared expertise can strengthen material review and decision-making.

Schools can use these four guidelines to support sexual health education:

  • Have policies that foster supportive environments for sexual health education.
  • Use content that is medically accurate, developmentally appropriate, and culturally responsive and inclusive.
  • Give staff the knowledge and skills needed to deliver quality sexual health education.
  • Engage parents and community partners.

Key to success‎‎

Include enough time during professional development and training for teachers to practice and reflect on what they learned. This can help support their sexual health education instruction.

More information

Check out CDC's tools and resources below to develop, select, or revise SHE curricula.

  • Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT) Module: Sexual Health. This module within CDC's HECAT includes the knowledge, skills, and health behavior outcomes aligned to SHE. School and community leaders can use this module to develop, select, or revise K– 12 SHE curricula and instruction.
  • Developing a Scope and Sequence for Sexual Health Education. This resource provides an 11-step process to help schools outline the key sexual health topics and concepts (scope). The resource also outlines the logical progression of essential health knowledge, skills, and behaviors to address at each grade level (sequence), pre-K– 12. A developmental scope and sequence are essential to developing, selecting, or revising SHE curricula.
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Content Source:
Adolescent and School Health; National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)