Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance data for 2007 is available

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, YRBS for short, has been conducted every 2 years since 1991 and aims to describe the health related behaviors of high school students in the United States. This year for the first time some trend analysis is allowing us to see changes in risk behavior for three racial groups, African Americans, Hispanic or latinos and whites.

The study found decreases in key sexual risk behaviors among several groups:

• Decreases occurred overall in the percentage of black students who has ever had sexual intercourse (66 percent in 2007; 82 percent in 1991); and who had sex with four or more people during their lifetime (28 percent in 2007; 43 percent in 1991.)
• Decreases occurred in the percentage of white students who had ever had sexual intercourse - 44 percent in 2007; 50 percent in 1991; and who had had sex with four or more people in their lifetime - 12 percent in 2007; 15 percent in 1991.
  

Additionally, Latino students reported less exposure to comprehensive sex education that included information about HIV and AIDS, and also had lower rates of condom use than other groups. The telebriefing explains some of why this might be and makes for interesting reading.

You can read a transcript of the telebriefing from June 4th, and also check out fact sheets, methodology, comprehensive results, etc. And here is the press release for the boiled down version.

These data are an invaluable resource for anyone working on improving the health status of youth in this country.

1 in 4 Teen Girls has an STD

That is 1 in 4 girls here in the US. One in four of the teen girls that we see everyday- hanging out at the mall or walking home from school. These girls have clearly be done a grave disservice. These results come from a new CDC study released today that looked at the "combined national prevalence of common sexually transmitted diseases among adolescent girls." The numbers are staggering. Apparently, only roughly half the girls participating in the study acknowledged ever having sex. There is clearly some confusion about what sex is and how STDs are spread. In 2005 we see the first raise in teen birth rates in 15 years and now this study shows that we have group of confused and potentially unwell kids. What is to be done? Dare i point the finger at abstinence only education?

Free (and informative) geek rags - from the CDC

A little known fact is that MMWR (CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) is free and you can sign up and have it sent to your inbox every week!

It sounds morbid, yes, but it is a great resource, with links to full length articles, podcasts and delicious statistics. So it doesn't always have sexual health related articles. An sample of what came this week:
"QuickStats: Death rates from poisoning, By State, United States 2004"
OR
"Ocular and Respiratory Illnesses Associated with an Indoor Swimming Pool, Nebraska 2006"

But several weeks back was this gem:
"QuickStats: Percentage of Adults aged >18 Years Who Reported Ever Being Tested for Human Immuno Deficiency Virus..."

To sign up for your free subscription, just name and email needed, go here.

Now, if you're really into infectious diseases (like me), you might want to read Emerging Infectious Diseases. This is also a free CDC publication and you can have it sent to your house in full glossy glory. Sign up here.

I look forward to it every month.

Podcast interviews: The stars of ISSTDR '07

I'm a little tardy with this one, but in early August Eric Whitney, ISIS' associate director, had the pleasure of going to the ISSTDR (International Society for STD Research) conference this year in Seattle. In this podcast interview Eric highlights the Sex::Tech conference (coming soon in January '08) as well as our tried and true, Inspot. Yay Eric.

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Here are the stellar voices of Doug Richardson from the Denver Public Health Department and Rachel Kachur from the CDC discussing the early days of the STD and Internet Center of Excellence (a Sex::Tech sponsor) and the future of mobile prevention tools.

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In this podcast, Don Clark, director of NCSD, bring us up to speed with national efforts to integrate HIV/STD/TB/Hep, STD funding fights in Washington and the state of the internet guidelines project of which two chapters may be released this fall at the annual NCSD meeting in New Orleans.

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