# State of Menstrual Health Education in 2024: Content Analysis of US K‐12 Public School Education Standards

## TL;DR

This study finds that menstrual health education is rare in US K-12 schools, with only a few states including it in their curriculum.

## Contribution

The paper provides the first content analysis of menstrual health education across all US state education standards.

## Key findings

- Only 25.5% of US states include menstruation in their education standards.
- Comprehensive menstrual health topics like hygiene and stigma are rarely covered.
- Menstrual education is introduced as early as 3rd grade but is not widely standardized.

## Abstract

Exploratory study aiming to assess the prevalence and time of initiation of menstrual health curriculum in US public school education standards by state.

US public school Kindergarten‐12th grade education standards from each state's Department of Education website, including D.C. (n = 51), were searched for menstruation, menstrual, menses, menopause, period, menarche, reproduction, puberty, and growth and development.

25.5% (n = 13) of US education standards include menstruation. Of these, constructs of comprehensive menstrual health were recorded including abnormal menstruation (n = 6), menstrual hygiene (n = 6), menopause (n = 1), and stigma (n = 7). Education is initiated in 3rd–5th grade (n = 6) and 6th–8th grade (n = 7). One state required boys and girls to be taught separately. Parents opt‐out choice is allowed in (n = 6) and (n = 6) requires certified teachers.

Isolating menstrual education as an independent framework is needed to advocate for educational inclusion in US public schools.

Menstrual health education is profoundly rare in US K‐12 public education standards, despite 50 million students being impacted. Furthermore, comprehensive menstrual education does not currently exist in US education standards.