By: Megan Henry

Ohio, one of a handful of states without comprehensive sex education taught in schools, has a higher teen birth rate than the national average.

The national birth rate for females 15-19 years old was 13.1 per 1,000 females and Ohio’s teen birth rate is 14.6 per 1,000 females in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

More than half (61%) of Ohio’s chlamydia cases in 2023 were people between the ages of 15-24, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Ohio’s syphilis rate (16.3 per 100,000) was higher than the national average (15.8 per 100,000) in 2023, according to the CDC.

“What we’ve seen is states that have no sex ed or poor sex ed policies, they typically fare worse on health indicators such as (sexually transmitted infections

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