Religiosity May Stem Risky Sexual Behavior in Girls : Those who scored high on a study's religiosity index were less likely to have had sex than were their peers.

Despite these limitations, the findings do suggest that clinicians who provide reproductive health care to adolescents “should routinely ask their patients about religiosity—particularly the frequency of attendance at religious services and whether and to what degree religious beliefs affect decisions about sex and contraception—since it does play into sexual risk behaviors,” Dr. Gold said.