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Girls Inc.^®: Assessing Adolescent Girls' Activities and Behaviors

According to national estimates, nearly half of all high school students in the U.S. have had sexual intercourse. Among those who are sexually active, more than one-third have engaged in unprotected sex. To help policymakers, parents, educators, and others address these high rates of risky sexual behaviors, Mathematica worked with Girls Incorporated^® to conduct the Girls Shape the Future Study, which evaluated a pregnancy prevention program and investigated how adolescent girls’ views, attitudes, and risk behaviors related to sexual activity change over time.

Our first study evaluated Will Power/Won’t Power^®, one component of the Girls Incorporated Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy Program. This was one of the few long-term, experimental studies of adolescent pregnancy prevention designed to rigorously test how participation in Will Power/Won’t Power affects adolescent girls’ exposure to and knowledge of health topics, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease risk and prevention. The study also aimed to assess if Will Power/Won’t Power developed views and attitudes about postponing sexual activity, improved self-perception, lowered risky behaviors, and decreased interactions with peers who engage in risky behaviors. 

In a second study, we investigated how girls’ views, attitudes, and risk behaviors change over time as they move through middle school and into high school and examined early predictors of subsequent risk behaviors.

Publications

“Girls Shape the Future Study: Findings and Lessons Learned from an Effort to Assess the Effectiveness of the Girls Incorporated Will Power/Won’t Power Program” (October 2008)  

“Early Predictors of Girls’ Adolescent Sexual Activity: Longitudinal Findings from the Girls Shape the Future Study” (October 2008)