COMMUNITY PERCEPTIONS OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH AND SEXUALITY - RESULTS FROM A SOUTHERN COMMUNITY-BASED PROJECT

Objective: To describe the attitudes about adolescent health issues, e specially school-based health services, held by adults in a rural comm unity. Design: ''Before-after,'' quasi-experimental design involving i ndependent, cross-sectional population-based surveys in 1989 and 1992. Setting: Rural county located in the southeastern United States. Part icipants: Probability sample of adults, 18 years and older, who were r esidents of the county, including 831 respondents in the first survey and 210 respondents in the second survey. Intervention: County-wide pu blic education campaign involving public service announcements on tele vision and radio, newspaper advertisements, posters, and open-to-the-p ublic adolescent health programs and events. Main Outcome Measures: At titudes about the types of health services that should be included in a public school-based adolescent health program. Results: Rural adults ' attitudes toward public school-based adolescent health services were similar before and after the community-wide campaign. Respondents bel ieved the public schools should provide teenagers with information and counseling on substance abuse, sexual activity, birth control, and th e acquired immunodeficiency syndrome but should not provide primary he alth care or birth control products. Most adults believed that sex and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome education should begin before high school. Conclusions: A comprehensive, public school-based adolescent health program providing health information but not health services ma y be acceptable to this community. Adults' attitudes about adolescent health issues do not appear to have been modified by the adolescent he alth awareness campaign.