This week in PLoS Medicine: “Good Things for Young People”; Getting STRICTA about guidelines for acupuncture trials; and more
New articles in PLoS Medicine this week include research on the community-based MEMA kwa Vijana (“Good things for young people”) intensive sexual health education programme in schools in rural Tanzania. David Ross and colleagues find only a small effect on reported sexual behaviors among adolescents and no effect on the prevalence of HIV and genital herpes (HSV2) 9 years after the start of the intervention. The disappointing results are discussed in a Perspective by Rachel Jewkes.
We also publish research by Jill Pell and colleagues showing that there is an association between gestation of a baby at delivery and the risk of special educational needs in later life. This finding has important implications for the timing of elective Caesarean deliveries. The study is currently being widely reported in the media.
Finally, we are one of several journals who have published an update to a reporting guideline called STRICTA this week, which stands for Revised STandards for Reporting Interventions in Clinical Trials of Acupuncture. As the “Guidelines and Guidance” block on our homepage highlights, this is just one of several papers we’ve published promoting guidelines to encourage transparency and completeness in the reporting of medical research.