Fifty-one percent of high school students in Indiana are sexually active, pediatrician James Laughlin said. Only 42 percent of these students used condoms.
Despite these numbers, Monroe County’s teen birth rate is the lowest in Indiana, Laughlin said. The current rate is 13 births for every 1,000 sexually active teenage girls.
In his speech at the 2016 Indiana Public Health Week Conference, Laughlin said these numbers are gradually improving, but it will take several collaborative efforts in education for the local and statewide communities to improve.
“My gut feeling is, knowing the emphasis placed on student outreach and talking about sexual health in middle schools, Monroe County has the key to making improvement in these statistics,” Laughlin said.
Laughlin said the community can’t rely on the government to reform the health education curriculum.
He said these initiatives, such as having honest conversations with teenagers and guaranteeing the comfort of patients, are born from the community’s push to improve.
IU Health Bloomington Hospital, the School of Public Health and several private practices have put funding together to create a program that has expanded into a 10-county area in southern Indiana.
“We need teachers who are comfortable and skilled who teach this,” Laughlin said. “We teach our medical students, but not all of them are well-trained in being teachers.”
Laughlin said health education is one of the fastest-growing professions in the United States, so encouraging people to pursue it is both a economically and health conscious decision.
“We’re willing to take small steps,” Laughlin said. “But in order to accomplish our goals, we have to be a bit annoying to the people around us to get things done.”
Laughlin was one of the primary speakers for the annual conference organized by the Indiana Public Health Association, which was on World Health Day in the Indiana Memorial Union.
Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton and Division of Adolescent and School Health Director Stephanie Zaza also gave speeches.
Attendees visited exhibits, viewed student poster sessions and sat in on interactive breakout sessions in between the speeches. Topics at the sessions included effects of climate change on public health, interventions for youth violence and adolescent sexual health.
Libby Richards, assistant professor at Purdue University, led the interactive session on the effects of climate change on public health. Those present in the room looked over the proposal the IPHA drafted for 2016 and made suggested changes to the policy resolutions.
“We take a look at the policies and see how we can make the state of Indiana better as it faces climate change,” Richards said. “Our policies try to get organizations and institutions to work together and improve the public health situation.”
The group changed the wording of many clauses in the suggestions and amendments.
Modifications included minor grammatical fixes, as well as developing several of the statements to make them more inclusive and forward-thinking, Richards said.
“I have no idea if the changes we made will be voted on electronically or in person,” Richards said. “If they are substantial, it will depend on the discussion. We value group discussions on our policy because we’re able to accomplish so much more.”
