Does peer pressure affect teens’ ideas about sexual activity?
Many teens believe that most of their peers are sexually active.
Rechanneling peer pressure to encourage healthy and informed
choices about sexuality through a peer education model holds
the promise of being more effective than traditional adultdelivered
sexual health education, but it also entails risks,
requiring careful preparation and training of peer educators.
Below we examine how the Teen Prevention Education Program
(Teen PEP) is being implemented in schools in North Carolina and
how youth are responding to receiving messages about sexual
health from older peers.