Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are very real and unfortunately do happen to a lot of teens. You'd probably be surprised to learn how many people you know in school that have an STD or who would get one during their teen years. Even worse, some risky behaviors that are practiced when you're a teen can show up years later and cause life-threatening illness. HIV/AIDS is what we're talking about. Many adults in there 20s or 30s got HIV when they were teens, but didn't find out until they were older. It can take HIV as long as 10 years to show up, even though you've had it all along. As the CFOC puts it:.
"Every year 3 million teens (1 in 4 sexually experienced teens) become infected with an STD."" In the US during 1997, HIV infection was the 7th leading cause of death among individuals ages 15-24. Gonorrhea and chlamydia are the 2 most common STDs among teens and young adults.
In a recent Teen People survey, teen's ages 15-17 reported that it's easier to have sex with a partner than to discuss STDs with a partner.
Alcohol and drugs can make people do things they normally wouldn't do which may increase their risk of STDs. Adolescent females who used alcohol were 70% more likely to have several sex partners in the past 3 months than those who didn't use alcohol. Similarly, males who used alcohol were 60% more likely to have multiple sex partners.
Teens make up less than 10% of the US population, but compromise 25% of the STD cases.
A higher number of STD episodes were significantly related to having younger ages of 1st intercourse. A lot of people ask, "Why don't condoms work?- 54% of those who use condoms use them intermittently, for this group; the failure rate is 50-60% with in a year only 17% of those who use condoms use them all the time. Failure rate with 100% usage is 8-9% with in a year. The risk of a married partner of an HIV+ spouse becoming HIV+ is 1 in 6 with in months even with perfect condom use.