EyesOpenIowa: Your Connection to Adolescent Sexual Health.

It is with great excitement that we announce an important change to our organizational identity. As of today, FutureNet becomes EyesOpenIowa: Your Connection to Adolescent Sexual Health.

This name change comes as our organization continues to engage in an important transformational process. In addition to a new name and look, this process will result in a strong new vision and mission for our work, an expanded focus on adolescent sexual health, and a revitalized staff and board of directors.

 In the early steps of this transformation, we decided to pursue a stronger identity. We wanted this identity to create immediate emotional depth and connection, to lend itself to multiple applications in our work, and to offer a mandate that would place us in the role of proactive partner and leader in the field.

 We believe EyesOpenIowa achieves those things.

 To arrive at our new brand, we engaged Swaelu Media, a Des Moines-based firm, in a thorough branding process that included industry research, extensive creative exploration, and focus groups with key collaborators and others. We are thankful to the team at Swaelu and all our focus group participants for their inspiring work on this project.

 In the next few months, you’ll see additional pieces of our new brand revealed in various formats and forums, including a new website. Keep your “eyes open” for an invitation to join us as we celebrate the full launch of our new brand in May.

 In the meantime, please change your address books to reflect our new email addresses. You can reach Project & Advocacy Coordinator Joy Esposito at joy@eyesopeniowa.org. You can contact me at rhonda@eyesopeniowa.org. We’ll notify you of our new staff members’ email addresses just as soon as they join us.

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Births: Preliminary 2006 Data

This report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) presents preliminary data on births and birth rates as well as selected maternal and infant health characteristics for the United States in 2006. Download PDF Now!

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First-ever Congressional Hearing on Abstinence-only Programs

The first-ever congressional oversight hearing focusing on domestic abstinence-only programs was held on April 23, 2008.  The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, held the hearing titled “Domestic Abstinence-Only Programs:  Assessing the Evidence.”  Testimonies by Dr. John Santelli and Shelby Knox can be found here. FutureNet submitted a statement for the record for the hearing.

Study First to Link TV Sex to Real Teen Pregnancies!

“Teenagers who watch a lot of television featuring flirting, necking, discussion of sex and sex scenes are much more likely than their peers to get pregnant or get a partner pregnant, according to the first study to directly link steamy programming to teen pregnancy.  The study, which tracked more than 700 12-to-17-year-olds for three years, found that those who viewed the most sexual content on TV were about twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who saw the least.

Kelleen Kaye of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy praised the study but stressed that the causes of teen pregnancy are complex.  "We need to be cautious about overreaching in our expectations about the role the media can play in our effort to prevent teen pregnancy," she said. "We don't want to assume this is the whole story."

Several experts questioned whether the study had established a causal relationship.  "It may be the kids who have an interest in sex watch shows with sexual content," said Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute. "I'm concerned this makes it seem like if we just shut off the TV we'd dramatically reduce the teen pregnancy rate." Click here to view this study reported by the Washington Post.

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Teen Pregnancy Rates
Decline Between 2002-2004

The teen pregnancy rate in the United States continued to decline between 2002 and 2004, according to data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. The teen pregnancy rate (girls aged 15-19) declined 5% between 2002 and 2004.  Click here to view the National Campaign’s April 2008, press release. 

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Comdom Use & Consistency Among Teen Males

Click here to download this Child Trends Fact Sheet (PDF).

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Plans Sought to Curb Teen Girls' High STD Rate

Adolescent women have a high rate of sexually transmitted infections, and preventing these diseases needs to be an important public health goal, according to a paper presented by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers at the April 2008 National STD Prevention Conference

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2009 FutureNet
Student Art Contest

It’s time for FutureNet’s annual student art contest! Open to high school students, FutureNet sponsors the art contest as part of our statewide recognition of National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month in May. The art contest is a creative means for high school students currently in 9th through 12th grades to encourage other Iowa youth to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases with messages about sexual responsibility and healthy relationships.

Download 2009 PDF Contest Flyer for more information!