In 2008, there were more than 1.5 million total cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea reported to CDC — making them the two most commonly reported infectious diseases in the United States. Adolescent girls and young women are especially hard hit by these two diseases. The largest number of reported cases of both chlamydia and gonorrhea in 2008 was among girls between 15 and 19 years of age, followed closely by young women 20 to 24 years of age. This likely reflects a combination of factors, including biological differences that place females at greater risk for STDs than males, as well as higher STD screening rates among young women.

Syphilis — a disease once on the verge of elimination — began re-emerging as a public health threat in 2001. This is primarily because of a resurgence of the disease among men who have sex with men (MSM), though cases among women have also been increasing in recent years.
STDs and Infertility

Untreated STDs can lead to serious long-term health consequences, especially for adolescent girls and young women. CDC estimates that undiagnosed and untreated STDs cause at least 24,000 women in the United States each year to become infertile.3

Expanded access to STD prevention services, screening, and treatment is urgently needed to reduce the toll of STDs and protect the health of millions of Americans.
Racial Disparities

Racial minorities continue to face severe disparities across all three reportable STDs. While racial disparities persist overall, African-Americans, especially young African-American women, are the most heavily affected. Young African-American women face significantly higher rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea than any other group, while the highest rates of syphilis are among African-American men.

Link to PDF Factsheet

Sex education programs that advise students to delay sexual activity while also offering instruction on ways to avoid unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections effectively reduce risky sexual behavior, increase condom use and decrease spread of STIs.

While the report concluded there was not enough information to determine the effectiveness of “abstinence only” education, advocates for more comprehensive sex education weighed in:

James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth said, “At long last, evidence and common sense have returned to public health policy,” adding that the report “endorses the comprehensive approach to prevention that includes condoms and birth control.” Wagoner said, “We should be spending taxpayer dollars only on evidence-based programs.” Sarah Brown of the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy said, “Most Americans would like their teens to stay away from sex,” adding, “Strong research shows that the best way to do this, especially in schools, is to use a curriculum that encourages teens to delay sex and also — this is the key — talks to them about family planning and protection.”

The National Partnership for Women and Families post also cited a recent report from the Washington Post.

About World Contraception Day

World Contraception Day (WCD) is an international awareness campaign for teenagers. Its long-term goal is to make the public more aware of the topic of contraception. The annual WCD significantly helps educate teens on contraception and sexuality, but also all respective health questions.

Every year, countries and regions around the world organize events to mark WCD and to demonstrate their commitment to raising awareness of contraception and improving education regarding reproductive and sexual health.

Support for the WCD is growing continuously: A total of 10 non-governmental and scientific organizations from all over the world have partnered with this initiative, set in motion and supported by Bayer Schering Pharma.

Find out more at http://www.your-life.com

Thanks for the heads up and please keep those tips coming.

Washington, D.C., officials are planning to make testing for sexually transmitted infections available at all public high schools in the coming school year, adding D.C. to a growing list of cities that test students for STIs….

he new program requires all students to attend a lecture about STIs, after which they are escorted into restroom areas in groups of 15 to 20. They are then given paper bags with urine collection cups and go into the stalls, at which point they can decide whether to provide a sample. All students return the paper bags, regardless of whether they provided samples. Students give a password and can call a week later to receive their confidential results and, if necessary, treatment at the school or an STI clinic, which is paid for by the city. The district first offered the program two years ago at two charter schools, and eight high schools were included during the past school year.

Also from The Women’s Health Report, news from Boston:

Boston’s health agency on Tuesday is scheduled to launch a safer-sex campaign that reaches out to teenagers through Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube, the Boston Globe reports. The campaign was created in response to rising rates of sexually transmitted infections among young people in the city, according to the Globe. The $100,000 campaign originally was intended to address communicable diseases in general. However, experts noticed the increase in STI cases among teenagers and decided to spend all the funding on the campaign targeting STIs.

A school-based program that integrates information about healthy relationships into the existing ninth-grade curriculum appears to reduce adolescent dating violence and increase condom use two and a half years later, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The effects of the low-cost intervention appear stronger in boys.

In an accompanying editorial, published with the study, Candice L. Odgers, Ph.D, of the University of California, Irvine, and Michael A. Russell, M.A., write:

“This study contributes to what we know about the prevention of adolescent dating violence in two important ways. First, randomization of adolescents to an intervention condition provides support for the position that school-based interventions can have causal effects on adolescents’ romantic relationships, although this may be true only for boys,” they continue. “Second, this study provides proof of principle that effective classroom-based interventions targeting relationship violence can be delivered by leveraging existing resources (e.g., teacher time and modifications to existing curriculum) and for the relatively low cost of $16 per student.”

* About one-third of adolescents hadn’t received instruction on methods of birth control before age 18.
* In 2004, there were about 745,000 pregnancies among females younger than age 20. This included an estimated 16,000 pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14.
* Syphilis cases among young people aged 15 to 24 have increased in both males and females in recent years.
* In 2006, about one million young people aged 10 to 24 were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis. Nearly one-quarter of females aged 15 to 19, and 45 percent of females aged 20 to 24 had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003-2004.
* From 1997 to 2006, rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15 to 24 increased.
* In 2006, the majority of new diagnoses of HIV infection among young people occurred among males and those aged 20 to 24.
* From 2004 to 2006, about 100,000 females aged 10 to 24 visited a hospital emergency department for nonfatal sexual assault, including 30,000 females aged 10 to 14.

The Website RHReality Check has some thought provoking articles about teen pregnancy prevention.

The New York Times has an interesting piece about the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina and how they are using text messaging to teach sex education to teens.