Unsafe sex taxes health in the US
Feb 01, 2005
THE public health burden related to unsafe sexual activity is three times higher in the US than in other developed nations, according to researchers at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
THE public health burden related to unsafe sexual activity is three times higher in the US than in other developed nations, according to researchers at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nearly all the premature deaths and adverse health consequences are preventable, the investigators maintain.
Dr Shahul Ebrahim and colleagues in Atlanta, Georgia, point out sexual behaviour can lead to a variety of harmful consequences, such as unintended pregnancies. They compiled data from the US Burden of Disease Study for 1996 to estimate mortality attributable to sexual behaviour.
Included in their calculations were all major sexually transmitted diseases and the proportion of conditions such as infertility, abortion, HIV and viral hepatitis attributable to unsafe sex.
As reported in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, they found nearly 20 million cases of adverse health conditions (7,532 per 100,000 population) and 30,000 deaths (1.3 percent of US deaths) were a consequence of unsafe sexual behaviour.
The majority of this public health burden falls on women — 62 percent of behaviour-related adverse health events. Cervical cancer was the leading cause of sex-related mortality.
Men suffered the majority of deaths (66 percent), primarily from HIV.
“Interventions among adolescents to delay age at first sexual contact and use of hepatitis B vaccine, treatment of curable STDs and correct use of condoms and contraceptives can reduce the sexual behaviour related public health burden,†Ebrahim’s group writes.
Reuters
Nearly all the premature deaths and adverse health consequences are preventable, the investigators maintain.
Dr Shahul Ebrahim and colleagues in Atlanta, Georgia, point out sexual behaviour can lead to a variety of harmful consequences, such as unintended pregnancies. They compiled data from the US Burden of Disease Study for 1996 to estimate mortality attributable to sexual behaviour.
Included in their calculations were all major sexually transmitted diseases and the proportion of conditions such as infertility, abortion, HIV and viral hepatitis attributable to unsafe sex.
As reported in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, they found nearly 20 million cases of adverse health conditions (7,532 per 100,000 population) and 30,000 deaths (1.3 percent of US deaths) were a consequence of unsafe sexual behaviour.
The majority of this public health burden falls on women — 62 percent of behaviour-related adverse health events. Cervical cancer was the leading cause of sex-related mortality.
Men suffered the majority of deaths (66 percent), primarily from HIV.
“Interventions among adolescents to delay age at first sexual contact and use of hepatitis B vaccine, treatment of curable STDs and correct use of condoms and contraceptives can reduce the sexual behaviour related public health burden,†Ebrahim’s group writes.
Reuters