Sources used in this document:

The article "Apprentices' knowledge and attitudes about sexually transmitted disease" by Oncel (2012) was a study of 'apprentices' in Turkey, or students who did not go on to higher education but instead entered a trade (apprenticeship) school. An in-class questionnaire was used to determine attitudes about STDs. While 60.9% of the apprentices recognized the name of at least one STDs, 83.6% of the participants did not know about the symptoms of any STDs and only 28.1% were knowledgeable about effective protection methods. A significant majority believed incorrect information about STDs, such as the idea that healthy-looking people could not have an STD (51.4% of the tested population). Chi-square and regression models were used to assess the data. Turkey is a conservative Muslim country and the results are troubling regarding the state of knowledge of STDs amongst young people.

Which research studies seems to yield the most meaningful and valid results, and which seems to be the weakest or most questionable

The most comprehensive study was that of Adebowale (2013), using large scale numbers based upon statistical analysis of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. However, the idea that poverty and ignorance increases one's risk of STDs is not a novel one, and no data was used to determine if the same predictors were true of males, and how male attitudes towards condom use might differ amongst various socio-economic groups, which could affect public education campaigns: if men are unwilling to use condoms, focusing on educating women might be less effective. The Kaplan (et al. 2009) study of Chicago residents was valuable in its contrast of African-American and Latino populations of similar demographic characteristics in terms of STD rates, although for all persons regardless of race, poverty and lower education levels were strongly associated with higher rates of STDs. Although it took the form of a relatively narrowly-based questionnaire, the Oncel (2012) offers interesting preliminary research about a failure to educate the majority of working-class Turkish youths about STDs. More demographic data on the participants would have been helpful to fully contextualize the results. Given that men, persons specializing in hygiene education, and graduates from STD education programs had higher rates of accurate knowledge, this suggests that religious and cultural attitudes may impede the dissemination of accurate information.