A peer education program: delivering highly reliable sexual health promotion messages in schools.

Purpose: This article describes preliminary findings from an implementation study of a school-based peer education program on sexual health for high-school youth. The responses of youth participants are described.

Methods: Qualitative data were collected across one semester in two successive waves of participants (N = 4 schools), including observations of program activities, in-depth interviews of stakeholders, focus groups with youth participants (N = 62 peer educators and 60 ninth graders), and brief surveys of youth participants (N = 678). Grounded theory methodology informed data collection and analysis.

Results: Teen Prevention Education Program (Teen PEP) was adapted and replicated with fidelity to the model in North Carolina high schools. All program "inputs" and five core model components (outputs) were implemented. The principal accommodation made was to implement the entire curriculum within one half of a school year rather than across the entire school year although still using the same amount of instructional time. Youth participants attributed high value to the experience, noting that the sexual health information they received was both new and important for their lives and that they felt they learned it better from their peers than from instruction in traditional health class. The majority of participants reported that the program helped them across a range of areas related to both social well-being and sexual health.

Conclusions: Teen PEP developers have been able to successfully adapt and replicate it in North Carolina, in settings that need sexual health education services for youth both because of the paucity of existing services in many areas and because of the evidence of risk in the form of high rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus or AIDS in youth 15-19 years of age. Youth reported benefits across a range of social and sexual health-related areas.