STD Rates

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Anchor lead: Rising rates of STDs are a concern for everyone, Elizabeth Tracey reports

If you’re sexually active or know someone who is, recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics should be concerning, as they show a huge increase in rates of gonorrhea and syphilis, the latter of particular concern for newborns. Maria Trent, an adolescent medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, says young people are hit especially hard.

Trent: People are not worried about STDs until they have one. So we have to work hard to make sure that we’re doing asymptomatic screening in primary care settings and that we offer those services to people in a destigmatized way. Rates have been rising for some time now and in young people they are significant. And I think what we’ve seen is really a shift in young people’s ability to access screening services. :24

Trent notes that online access to screening services may be a practical choice for many, and says sites that provide education are also available.