Estimating the cost-effectiveness of a classroom-based abstinence and pregnancy avoidance program targeting preadolescent sexual risk behaviors

Previous research has suggested that school-based pregnancy prevention programs that provide sexual education and related forms of support and foster life skill development are effective in improving preadolescents' attitudes toward abstinence and contraception. However, there has been limited research on the cost-effectiveness of such programs. This study used an economic approach to estimate the short- and long-term cost-effectiveness of a school-based pregnancy prevention education program by controlling for various influential factors, including predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors. The results of this study indicate that school-based health education intervention improves preadolescents' attitudes toward abstinence and pregnancy avoidance through contraceptive use. The findings also indicate that the program is cost-efficient and demonstrate its net benefits based on its long-term impact. The findings demonstrate that spending US$1000 on school-based health education intervention fosters the prevention of 13.67 unintended pregnancies among preadolescents. Sexual abstinence helps society avoid the associated public welfare, socioeconomic, and medical/health-care costs of such pregnancies. The implication of this study is that these school-based health education programs should be widely implemented in high-risk neighborhoods.