The sexual activity of high school students has remained fairly stable in recent years, but students are more likely than before to use condoms, federal data show.
Between 1991 and 1993, the percentage of students who reported using condoms the last time they had sex increased significantly, from 46.2 percent to 52.8 percent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Feb. 24 in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The results of the survey also indicated that girls are becoming more assertive in having their partners wear condoms, said Dr. Lloyd Kolbe, the director of the division of adolescent and school health at the C.D.C.
However, he said, condom use decreases as students get older and as more girls use birth-control pills.
The data came from replies made by more than 16,000 students to the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The survey was not conducted in 1992.
Literacy Grants Announced
The Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund has given $1 million to the National Center for Family Literacy to bolster its family-literacy training programs in four states.
The Louisville, Ky.-based center will use the 2-1/2-year grant--which began in January--to build a cadre of certified teachers in California, Illinois, New York, and North Carolina.
In family-literacy programs, parents and their preschool children attend school and learn to read and write together.
The grant will provide training for about 240 teachers and serve an estimated 1,600 families, the family-literacy center said in a statement.
