Science, Public Health, and Risky Sex

Published July 28, 2009 @ 09:50AM PT

Liberals, like yours truly, always like to use the "science" argument when debating about public health.

A common version of the argument:

Conservatives: Telling kids about condoms makes them have premarital sex!

Liberals: They have premarital sex anyway. Condoms are scientifically proven to prevent pregnancy and STIs. We should definitely tell people about condoms.

Science is empowering. When people have the right to access accurate, rigorously tested information, they can make informed decisions about their own health. But what happens when the science - the real, statistically relevant science - isn't likely to encourage any healthy choices?

If you're a dedicated reader of this blog, you already saw Alanna's post on recent research suggesting that withdrawal may actually be an effective form of birth control. (For more information, take a look at the Guttmacher Institute study here.)

The New York Times published an article about the study this week, its headline proclaiming, "Withdrawal method finds ally." The Times' treatment of the subject got me thinking: What exactly is a publication's responsibility when it comes to controversial health news?

Science, that reliable argument for causes like comprehensive sex education, is also subtle, slow, and rarely as clear-cut as we would like - not exactly headline generating material. So when science does make the news, it tends to be oversimplified and sensationalized.

A quick browse through most major publications' health sections yields stunningly contradictory health news. To lose weight, don't eat carbs! To prevent cancer, drink green tea! And almost as quickly as the news arrives, new studies take their place, telling confused readers the new miracle cure for that which ails them.

It's easy to laugh when it comes to news on trendy weight-loss schemes. But what about an issue, like pregnancy and STI prevention, where the stakes are higher? How should journalists cover it, when the data are limited and likely to cause confusion - yet it's data nonetheless?

A decisively unscientific survey of some of my friends who work in public health yielded a pretty standard response to this issue. "Famous last words," one friend told me when I asked her about the New York Times article. Most people I talked to worried that the coverage of the study would give people an imaginary free reign to have unprotected sex. After all, the science seems to say, withdrawal is just as effective as condoms.

But the Guttmacher Institute study's leader author makes a compelling counter-argument: debates about public health should be data-driven, and she's got data. We should no more blindly trust the status quo in family planning than we should blindly hope teenagers won't figure out how to have sex if nobody talks about it.

What do you think? How should the mainstream media - and the public health community - cover an issue like this?

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Comments (2)

This article brings up so many issues that are essential when working in public health. So many times I read an article and I am usually too thrilled that global health is in the mainstream news that I forget that not everyone reading has a public health background. The NYT article, although interesting, puts the general public at risk as it oversimplifies the method without exploring all possibilities and methods. Mainstream news needs to have either a series of articles or a collaboration of authors when writing sensitive health topics. That way the holistic view of the topic can be explored and discussed rather than giving just one small tidbit of information.

I work in public health in Africa. There are huge campaigns encouraging male circumcision. The problem is that they think once they are circumcised they are no longer vulnerable to STIs. We need to be careful of how we present information and even if we find that some methods are working better, most of the time it is not going to work for the general population. I agree data is data and should be shared but make it a discussion not the only truth.

Posted by Kara Rogers on 07/29/2009 @ 02:56AM PT
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Debates about public health should be data driven, but the mainstream media also has some responsibility to present as much of the story as possible. To include a paragraph or clause that says, "while the withdrawal method has be shown to effectively reduce pregnancies, it cannot reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted infections" would not at all negate any of the data presented. The problem with media responsibility is that fulfillment of these responsibilities is very difficult to monitor. One would think that the New York Times would fulfill these responsibilities if only for their own credibility.

When it comes to promoting the use of withdrawal as a means of contraception - as much as I think we should promote the use of condoms - we also have to acknowledge that just as liberals have know that people have premarital sex, they will also have sex without condoms. In these cases people who do not want to get pregnant will find the information that withdrawal is an effective method quite useful.

Posted by Catee Lalonde on 07/29/2009 @ 01:13PM PT
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Author

Mara Gordon has worked in public health in Tanzania and in Botswana, and is currently in graduate school back in the United States. She originally from Washington, DC.