Reproductive Health

Reducing the Risk
Reducing the Risk is available to both Macomb and St. Clair County High Schools.

Reducing the Risk (RTR) is an adolescent pregnancy and HIV/ AIDS prevention program. Students learn about reducing the frequency of unprotected sexual intercourse through delaying or reducing the frequency of intercourse as well as increasing contraceptive and STD protection practice. Program has been tested in 13 California high schools with positive results.

The RTR curriculum had significant effects in several areas, such as parent- child communication, knowledge, and delaying the initiation of intercourse. Participation in the program increased teens' communication with their parents about abstinence and birth control. Even 18 months after the program, parents and students reported that the program made it easier for them to communicate. Lastly, the curriculum reduces the chance that a student would initiate intercourse, as much as 24%, and did not increase the frequency of intercourse among students who had already become sexually active. It also appeared to reduce unprotected intercourse among lower- risk students.

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