ASHA: What Makes Teens and Young Adults So Vulnerable to STIs?

Dr.Fortenberry: There’s no simple answer to your question. In the U.S., most young people begin having sex in thier middle to late adolescence, and that’s a time when they’re having new exposures, forming new relationships, and in many ways, they’re learning how to understand both the risks of sex within the context of these new relationships along with their potential for infection.

It’s vital to remember that most young people who start their sexual lives in adolescence and early adulthood don’t get STIs, so we keep in mind the differences between risk and the people that actually get infected. The statistics cover a 10-year period from age 15 to age 24, and as I said, there are a lot of changes in young people’s lives over that time. Many of those infections actually occur in the group of people ages 18 to 24,so the rates of infections may be very diffrent in those under age 18.We should really sort out the statistics a little bit before we get too overwhelmed by how bad the data look.

What About Biological Changes; How do They Impact a Young Person’s Susceptibility to STIs?

No one has fully sorted out the intersection of young people, biological changes, and increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted organisms. studies have identified potential factors such as the relative immaturity of the cervix.