Can the Internet be used effectively to provide sex education to young people in China?
Lou CH; Zhao Q; Gao ES; Shah IH Department of Epidemiology and Social Science on Reproductive Health, Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research, Shanghai, China. chaohual@sippr.stc.sh.cn PURPOSE: To assess the feasibility and effectiveness of sex education conducted through the Internet. METHODS: Two high schools and four colleges of a university in Shanghai were selected as the research sites. Half of these were assigned to the intervention group and the other half to the control group. The interventions consisted of offering sexual and reproductive health knowledge, service information, counseling and discussion to all grade one students in the intervention group. The intervention phase lasted for 10 months and was implemented through a special website, with web pages, online videos, Bulletin Board System (BBS) and expert mailbox. In total, 624 students from the intervention, and 713 from the control schools and colleges participated in the baseline survey, and about 97% of t