One in four U.S. teenage girls has an STD, study finds

By ALAN BAVLEY
The Kansas City Star

For too many teenage girls, the numbers released Tuesday hold the threat of infertility and cancer.

For the experienced U.S. health experts who reported them, the data were alarming and disappointing.

More than one in four teenage girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

That translates to 3.2 million girls ages 14 to 19 who are infected with human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, or trichomoniasis. Among girls with STDs, 15 percent had more than one.

The numbers came as no surprise to Daryl Lynch. As a physician in the Teen Clinic of Children’s Mercy Hospital, he deals with the children behind the statistics every day.

“We have historically seen lots and lots of STDs among teens in Kansas City,” Lynch said. “It’s a very sexually active, sexually promiscuous crowd that doesn’t practice safe sex. And therein lies the problem.”

Many adolescents have the attitude that nothing can hurt them, Lynch said.

“So motivating them to use condoms, it’s a tough sell,” he said. “Even among teens who have had an STD.”

While many of these diseases are also common among teenage boys, the researchers focused on girls because females are at higher risk of the most severe consequences of sexually transmitted diseases.

“What these numbers tell us is that we need to do a better job on lots of different fronts,” said John M. Douglas Jr., director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. “Better education of our young people, better promotion of prevention practices and better … screening practices.”

The CDC report, issued at a conference in Chicago, is the first national look at the combined prevalence of these infections among teenage girls, lead author Sara Forhan said.

The study, which uses national survey data, provides “the clearest picture to date” of the burden of these diseases, Forhan said. “What we found is alarming.”

Among the findings:

•HPV, which is associated with cervical cancer and genital warts, was the most common sexually transmitted disease among teenage girls, infecting 18.3 percent. Chlamydia, a bacterial infection, was present in 3.9 percent. Trichomoniasis, caused by single-cell parasites, infected 2.5 percent, and herpes simplex virus type 2 infected 1.9 percent.

•Black teenage girls had the highest prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases with 48 percent infected. Both white and Mexican American girls had prevalence rates of 20 percent.

The higher prevalence among black girls was not because of riskier behavior, but the higher rates of STDs that often exist in their communities, Douglas said.

The girls “are simply more likely to be exposed to a sexual partner with an STD,” he said. “Community risk really trumps individual risk.”

•About half of all the teens in the study reported having had sex. Among these girls, the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases was 40 percent. Even among girls who said they had only one lifetime sexual partner, one in five had at least one of the diseases. Girls who reported having three or more partners had a prevalence of more than 50 percent.

More comprehensive sexual education is needed in school to supplement the sexual abstinence messages being taught, said Lynch of Children’s Mercy.

“The old message of ‘just don’t do it,’ that doesn’t work,” he said. “We’ve got to give kids information to make intelligent choices. Yes, teach them about the importance of committed relationships, but don’t withhold information from kids.”

One important preventive measure parents should provide their daughters is the HPV vaccine Gardasil, Lynch said. If enough young women were to receive the three-shot series, cases of cervical cancer could be reduced by 70 percent, he said.

Prevention was on the mind of Delicia Sims, 18, of Raymore when she came to the Children’s Mercy clinic Tuesday for her first shot of HPV vaccine.

“I think about protecting myself all the time,” Sims said. “Most girls don’t understand. They don’t think about protection.”

The CDC recommends that all women ages 11 to 26 receive the HPV vaccine, Douglas said.

Douglas said screenings are another important preventive measure. For HIV, testing should be routine in everyone ages 13 to 64, he said.

Chlamydia screenings for sexually active women 25 and younger are critical, Douglas said. The disease often has no symptoms in women. Left untreated, it can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, which can lead to infertility.

The survey also tested girls for gonorrhea, but the data were not released to researchers for the study. None of the girls in the survey tested positive for syphilis or HIV.

@ Kansas City moms discuss teen girls and STDs on mom2momkc.com. Click on “My child’s health.”

To reach Alan Bavley, call 816-234-4858 or send e-mail to abavley@kcstar.com.