#  Applied Statistics - Janet Rosenbaum 

 





February 26, 2006

 

 

This week, the Applied Statistics Workshop will present a talk by Janet Rosenbaum, a Ph.D. candidate in the Program on Health Policy at Harvard. She majored in physics as an undergraduate at Harvard College and received an AM in statisics last year. Janet will present a talk entitled "[ Do virginity pledges cause virginity?: Estimating the efficacy of sexual abstinence pledges](http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov3009/Calendar/rosenbaum.pdf)". She has a publication forthcoming in the American Journal of Public Health on related research. The presentation will be at noon on Wednesday, March 1 in Room N354, CGIS North, 1737 Cambridge St. Lunch will be provided. The abstract of the paper follows on the jump:

> Objectives: To determine the efficacy of virginity pledges in delayingsexual debut for sexually inexperienced adolescents in the NationalLongitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health).Methods: Subjects were virgin respondents without wave 1 pledge who  
> reported their attitudes towards sexuality and birth control at wave 1  
> (n=3443). Nearest-neighbor matching within propensity score calipers  
> was used to match wave 2 virginity pledgers (n=291) with non-pledgers,  
> based on wave 1 attitudes, demographics, and religiosity. Treatment  
> effects due to treatment assignment were calculated.
> 
> Results (Preliminary): 17% of virginity pledgers are compliant with their pledge, and do not  
> recant at wave 3 their earlier report of having taken a pledge. Similar  
> proportions of virginity pledgers and non-pledgers report having had  
> pre-marital sex (54% and 61%, p=0.16) and test positive for chlamydia  
> (2.7% and 2.9%, p=0.89).
> 
> Conclusions: Five years after taking a virginity pledge, most virginity  
> pledgers fail to report having pledged. Virginity pledges do not affect  
> the incidence of self-reported pre-marital sex or assay-determined  
> chlamydia.

Posted by [Mike Kellermann](http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/archives/author/mike-kellermann/) at February 26, 2006 4:20 PM



 

 

 



 

 

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