Planned Parenthood | Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

 

by Anna
Web Correspondent
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

Growing up these days, you hear the terms "sexually transmitted infection" constantly in health or sex ed from about sixth grade onwards. Teachers often use it as a scare tactic, something they can mention as an alternative to wagging their finger at a classroom of hormonal thirteen-year-olds and telling them not to have sex. But how much do people really know about what STIs are and how they can avoid getting one? And how aware are they that they might have STIs themselves?

The answers in far too many cases are: Not much, and not very. Not fully understanding STIs in the first place is one reason why so many people obtain them, and the fact that many of these people don't even know they might be carrying an STI helps give the diseases easy transmission paths.

The Minnesota Department of Health, which will promote STI Awareness Month in April, offers some unpleasant statistics. One in two Americans will contract an STI during their life, usually before the age of 25, and one in four teens contracts an STI every year. There are about three million new cases of chlamydia reported in the United States annually, and six million new cases of genital warts. Yet less than half of adults 18 to 44 years of age have ever had an STI test apart from HIV screening.

Another study performed by Pediatrics and Child Health, a medical team in Canada, indicated that teens drastically overestimate the risk of getting HIV while simultaneously underestimating the risk of getting STIs that are far more prevalent, such as chlamydia.

The pathology of STIs has become so all-encompassing, and STIs in generally are so stigmatized, that one new website offers the option of anonymously notifying past sexual partners about possible STI transmission. Inspot.org even allows you to send apology cards and includes information on STI testing and treatment. The site, which originally served San Francisco and New York City, has expanded to include six other American cities, eight U.S. states (including Minnesota), two Canadian cities, and Romania. This resource helps ensure that people who have been exposed to STIs know they have been exposed so as to actively stop infections from spreading further.

To that end, PPMNS recently proposed a bill that has just been introduced into the Minnesota State Senate. The bill would provide grants to Minnesota health agencies and nonprofits to test and treat STIs and to further develop education and prevention campaigns. It is vital that this bill be passed for the sake of curbing the spread of increasingly prevalent infections like chlamydia and gonorrhea. Only by learning how to prevent STIs before they come into contact with them-a skill that too many young people still don't learn-can help people take their health into their own hands.

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