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Sex Education Among Asian American College Females: Who is Teaching them and What is Being Taught

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Abstract

Many parents are reluctant to educate their Asian American adolescents on sexual health topics because sexuality is taboo in most Asian cultures. A survey was conducted with Chinese, Filipina, Korean, and Vietnamese college females ages 18–25 to assess sources of abstinence and birth control education and age of sexual debut. Parents were the least reported source of sex education for all four ethnic groups, with the majority of respondents reporting school as their source of sex education. Respondents who reported family as their source of abstinence education had a sexual debut of 6 months later than those who did not. Females who reported family as their source of birth control education began having sex more than 7 months later than those who reported other sources. Disaggregation of data by Asian ethnic groups and examining differences in delivery of sex education among ethnic groups may improve school curricula and sexual health.

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Acknowledgments

This research is part of a study sponsored by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum through the California Young Women’s Collaborative. We thank the Department of Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine for hosting the AsianAm 150 Asian American Women’s Public Health Research and Field Studies course. We appreciate the students who participated in the survey, making this study possible. We would also like to thank the following individuals for their insightful comments in the manuscript review: Kelly Blanchard, Lidia Carlton, Tu-Uyen Nguyen, Miriam Yeung, Jacob Chang, and Divya Shenoy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Asian American Studies, University of California Irvine, 3000 Humanities Gateway, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Christine Lee, Denise Yen Tran, Deanna Thoi, Melissa Chang, Lisa Wu & Sang Leng Trieu

  2. National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, 1511 Water St., New York, NY, 11201, USA

    Sang Leng Trieu

Authors
  1. Christine Lee
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  2. Denise Yen Tran
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  3. Deanna Thoi
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  4. Melissa Chang
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  5. Lisa Wu
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  6. Sang Leng Trieu
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Correspondence to Christine Lee.

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Lee, C., Tran, D.Y., Thoi, D. et al. Sex Education Among Asian American College Females: Who is Teaching them and What is Being Taught. J Immigrant Minority Health 15, 350–356 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-012-9668-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-012-9668-5

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