Youth and STDs: The Epidemic in our Midst

[ensho]

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/04/13/youth-stds-epidemic-midst


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Every April is National STD Awareness Month—a month when various public health organizations publicize the importance of STD education, testing, and treatment. The truth of the matter is one month is not nearly enough time to sound the alarm. Given that the United States continues to have the highest rates of STD infection in the industrialized world, every month should be National STD Awareness Month.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 19 million new infections occur every year in this country, with approximately 48 percent of these new infections occurring in young people ages 15 to 24. Yet, this age group represents only 25 percent of the sexually active population in the United States. The high rate of infection among older adolescents and young adults suggests a risk of life-long health problems. STD infections often present without symptoms and, if left untreated, some infections may result in infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease, an increased risk for HIV, and cancers of the throat, mouth, penis, and cervix.

There are many reasons why adolescents are disproportionately affected by sexually transmitted diseases. Young people often lack access to confidential, youth-centered reproductive health services and care. Others, however, overcome the challenges. Clinics or medical providers can offer appointments during after-school hours, provide nonjudgmental care and services for a reduced fee or on a sliding scale, and give risk-reduction counseling and opportunities for the young person’s questions to be answered and discussed. Drop-in centers like the Broadway Youth Center of Howard Brown in Chicago and The SPOT in St. Louis have fully embraced this approach. Both centers provide youth with a space to take care of a wide variety of their needs, in addition to obtaining access to quality medical care and STD prevention and treatment, job counseling, case management, peer education programs and other forms of social support are also provided.

The lack of medically accurate and age-appropriate sex education also contributes to the high rate of STDs among adolescents.
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nary a word on youth alcohol use is in epidemic form too.


alcohol and STDs are lovers. find one and you find the other.

[amitten]

1. When I was in school, STD education was given, but incomplete.

They taught us about EVERY STD except one: HPV. Never a word about genital warts or the potentially cancerous HPV virus. Why would such a thing be omitted? (And yes, this virus was around and common at the time.)

Very strange.

[ensho]

2. don't know what it is about DUers but mention alcohol and teens

or alcohol and anything (like teen pregnancy) and

DUers remain silent

?

is it the mention of alcohol abuse or is it teens, that cause the silence or the two put together?

[seabeyond]

5. on the one hand we are embracing the freedom of teen to fuck any and all.... and

on the other hand, there is responsibility for adult behavior instead of "what do you expect, they are teens. teens 'nough said"

hard to reconcile the two.

[EFerrari]

3. I just solicited and got an interview with Pieter Dirk Uys in South Africa

who put together a program where he goes into schools and teaches kids to avoid AIDs with condoms. He's a brilliant satirist and who know how many millions of kids he's taught now since he started doing this in the 90s.

If someone tried to do that here, they'd be shot.

[ensho]

4. aha - thanks for the insight. the men with their noses up in women's wombs

have the power here.

[EFerrari]

6. I think that's right. n/t