Thanks Canada

This just in from our neighbors to the north regarding the story I posted yesterday about teens overreporting their condom use.  It has the added benefit of an interview with one of the researchers who co-authored the study in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. There’s not much new to report on the study, but I found two quotes particularly interesting regarding other issues I’ve previously discussed.

 

 “Myths that go around are if you use two condoms it’s safer than just using one, which of course, probably is a disaster,” Rose says. Interesting that a researcher at a top public health school would perpetuate a myth by calling a questionable piece of instruction — use two condoms to remain better protected from STDs and pregnancy — a myth.  I highlight this quote just to make clear how widespread the belief is that using two condoms is unsafe due to the friction of two condoms leading to rupture of both of them. Coincidentally, a friend today pointed to this response to the double-bagging question in a column from 1997 in the highly reputable Go Ask Alice column from Columbia University. It basically says that what Ms. Rose calls a myth is not a myth at all. Once again, judge for yourself.

 

The other notable quote was from the end of the first article linked to in this post, and again Ms. Rose here: “With teenagers, you never know whether they’re under-reporting or over-reporting when you ask them about drug use or sexual behaviour, and I guess that’s (true) with anybody.” If a researcher is this skeptical of how people report their behaviour, it must call into question quite a bit of research done in this field. Kinda scary if true.