MedPage Today:
LITTLE FALLS, N.J., July 17 -- Increases in teenage births, AIDS
infections, and other sexually transmitted diseases indicate that
progress in adolescent sexual health may have slowed in recent years, researchers say.
Teen birth rates
for girls decreased for almost 15 years before starting an upward trend
in 2005, and the annual rate of AIDS diagnoses among boys in that age
group has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, according to a new CDC
report.
After decreasing for more than 20 years, gonorrhea infection rates
leveled off, while syphilis rates have been increasing, CDC's Lorrie
Gavin, PhD, and colleagues reported in the July 17 Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report.
"The sexual and reproductive health of America's young persons remains
an important public health concern," the researchers said. "Earlier
progress appears to be slowing and perhaps reversing."
The report is a summary of data on young people from ages 10 to 24 from
multiple sources, including the National Vital Statistics System, the
National Health and 
The researchers found that about one million young people in the U.S.
had chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis in 2006. That group accounted for
nearly half of all incident sexually transmitted diseases even though
it represented only 25% of the sexually active population, the
researchers said.
A large proportion of disease occurs in the youngest population, with about 18,000 youths between ages 10 and 14 diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases in 2006.
Chlamydia was the most commonly reported STD, followed by gonorrhea, and then syphilis.
Rates of all three diseases were highest among non-Hispanic blacks for all age groups.
Also, about 25% of girls from to 19 and 45% of those from 20 to 24 had human papillomavirus infections between 2003 and 2004.
While teen pregnancy rates decreased every year from 1991 to 2005, they started increasing from 2005 to 2007.
About 745,000 pregnancies occurred among girls under 20 in 2004, with 16,000 of those involving girls from 10 to 14.
Like disparities in STD infection, pregnancy rates were much higher for
Hispanic and non-Hispanic black girls ages 15 to 19 than in white girls
(132.8 and 128 per 100,000 population, versus 45.2).
With regard to AIDS, the annual rate of diagnoses among boys ages 10 to
24 has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, from 1.3 cases per 100,000
in 1997 to 2.5 in 2006.
That year, about 22,000 youths in 33 states were living with HIV/AIDS.
Again, non-Hispanic blacks were most likely to be affected. Black
teenage girls ages 15 to 19 were more likely to live with AIDS than
Hispanics, Alaska Natives, whites, or Pacific Islanders (49.6 per
100,000 compared with 12.2, 2.6, 2.5, and 1.3, respectively).
Sexual assaults also increased over the study period, the researchers
said, with 105,000 girls visiting an emergency department for a sexual
assault injury between 2004 and 2006. About 27,500 of those visits were
among girls ages 10 to 14.
The researchers said that the southern states generally had the highest
rates of negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes, including
early pregnancies and STDs.
They said their findings "underscore the importance of sustaining efforts to promote adolescent reproductive health."
"Practitioners," they said, "can use [this information] when making
decisions about how to allocate resources and identify those
subpopulations that are in greatest need."
The study was limited by self-reported data, undetected cases of
disease, challenges in estimating pregnancy rates, and lack of ability
to investigate causality.
What do you think?
I am no expert but educating our kids involving the consequences of sex should be right up there with securing life insurance for your family.
Educating kids should begin at home.
i think we have to take our teens to a doctor and tell the doctor to explain everything very clearly to our teens and never be tired to repeated every day because just making them scared about it they maybe before they do something stupid they stop and think and then they will not do it
Quoting eaglemama2:I am no expert but educating our kids involving the consequences of sex should be right up there with securing life insurance for your family.
Educating kids should begin at home.
part of that curriculum include explaining your siggy?
Yep, sure is funny...this coincides with all our lovely tax money funneled to abstinence only sex ed.
Ab only sex ed being totally proven by multiple studies to be ineffective in preventing the onset of or rate of teen sex, or rate of teen pregnancy...OH but it HAS been linked with a higher rate of unprotected sex, and derr..that would up the incidence of STDs
Ah but call me crazy! I go with facts and evidence over ide *OT* ology every time...
It's terrible that the STD rate for teens is on the rise but I know firsthand that this is true. I just got out of high school and I heard about all the terrible disease going around. At that age you don't understand the consequences for your actions. You think the effects of the sex you have will end once you leave the bed/car. But it can follow you.
I'm not for the abstinance only approach to teaching sex ed. I was going to have sex regardless. That was my mindset. The only way to get to the age group is through fear. Show the graphic pictures of STD infected bodies. And for the few still willing to continue a sexual lifestyle, offer the condoms and birth control pills. Of course it should be said that abstinance is the best choice. But you can't expect people to follow what you say...especially teens.
I don't know what to say here except this is very sad :(
I support Ron Paul!
Quoting forsythia_18:It's terrible that the STD rate for teens is on the rise but I know firsthand that this is true. I just got out of high school and I heard about all the terrible disease going around. At that age you don't understand the consequences for your actions. You think the effects of the sex you have will end once you leave the bed/car. But it can follow you.
I'm not for the abstinance only approach to teaching sex ed. I was going to have sex regardless. That was my mindset. The only way to get to the age group is through fear. Show the graphic pictures of STD infected bodies. And for the few still willing to continue a sexual lifestyle, offer the condoms and birth control pills. Of course it should be said that abstinance is the best choice. But you can't expect people to follow what you say...especially teens.
I would be careful on going about the ole "fear" approach as we want our kids to have a healthy perspective on sex...not terrorize them into thinking that if a man ever touches them..they will die lol
There should be a happy medium
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on Jul. 18, 2009 at 10:28 PM