One in four teenage girls in the U.S. had at least one common sexually transmitted disease, according to the first national study to assess combined rates of the most common STDs among young women. The study was released on Tuesday.
About 3.2 million women between ages 14 and 19 had human papillomavirus, chlamydia, genital herpes or trichomoniasis. That number would be even higher if less-common diseases such as HIV/AIDS, syphilis and gonorrhea were included in the analysis, according to the statistics report released by the U.S. Center's for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sexually transmitted diseases cost almost $15 billion to treat annually in the U.S., and more than half of those infected are under 24 years old, according to the Atlanta-based CDC. About half the young women in today's study reported having sex, and 40 percent of sexually active women had STDs. HPV, a virus that causes cervical cancer, was the most common infection, prevalent among 18 percent of the teen girls in the study.
The study analyzed data from 838 teenagers who participated in a national health study in 2003 and 2004. Researchers used the nationally representative sample to project rates across the U.S. The second most common infection after HPV was chlamydia, found in four percent of the young women.
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