Sexual and Reproductive Health of Young People

Many young people in the U.S. engage in sexual risk behaviors that can result in unintended health outcomes, including sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, or pregnancy. Services to promote adolescent reproductive health — including evidence-based prevention education, counseling, testing, and referral — are essential and should be delivered so all youth can benefit.

After more than a decade of improvement, trends in the sexual and reproductive health of U.S. teens and young adults have flattened, or in some instances may be worsening, according to a new CDC report ( 1.44MB, 64 pages).

For the first time, CDC has compiled available youth sexual health data from multiple sources into a single report, enabling a new analysis of sexual risk behaviors and health outcomes among teens and young adults. Some of the findings are described below.

Many Young People Experience Negative Sexual Health Outcomes

The report shows that many adolescents and young adults in the United States engage in sexual risk behaviors and experience negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes. For example:

• About 1 million adolescents and young adults aged 10–24 years were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis in 2006.
• Nearly a quarter of females aged 15–19 years, and 45% of those aged 20–24 years, had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003–2004.
• There were approximately 745,000 pregnancies among U.S. females under age 20 in 2004.
• In 2006, the majority of new HIV diagnoses among adolescents and young adults aged 10–24 years occurred among those aged 20–24 and among males.
• Approximately 100,000 females aged 10–24 years visited a hospital emergency department for a nonfatal sexual assault injury during 2004–2006.

Improvements Appear to Be Slowing

Among the signs that progress has halted in some areas:

• Teen birth rates increased in 2006 and 2007, following large declines from 1991 to 2005.
• Rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15–24 years increased during 1997–2006.
• Syphilis cases among teens and young adults aged 15–19 and 20–24 years have increased in both males and females in recent years.

Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities Persist

The report also identifies a number of racial/ethnic disparities:

• Hispanic teens aged 15–19 were much more likely to become pregnant (132.8 births per 1,000 females) compared to their non-Hispanic black (128 per 1,000) and non-Hispanic white (45.2 per 1,000) peers.
• Rates of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses among young adults were highest among non-Hispanic black youth across all age groups.

Moving Forward

These findings underscore the importance of sustaining efforts to promote adolescent reproductive health. Effective screening, treatment, and referral services exist, and a growing number of evidence-based prevention education, parent-child communication, and youth development programs are available to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health. A key challenge is to ensure that these services are delivered so all youth can benefit.

More Information

• Adolescent Reproductive Health
• Healthy Youth: Sexual Risk Behaviors
• HIV/AIDS
• Sexually Transmitted Disease
• Sexual Violence