STD Rates among teens rise in Orange County, CA

[Questor]

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/coun ... 7-std-says

Sexually transmitted diseases on the rise among O.C. teens
Some high school students say it's not surprising because 'everyone is sleeping around.'
By JENNIFER MUIR
The Orange County Register
Comments 50| Recommend 2

Sexually transmitted diseases are rising among Orange County's youth, fueled by steadily increasing cases of chlamydia over the past 10 years, according to a county report illustrating the condition of children here.

The rate has increased 30.5 percent in STD cases among children ages 10 to 17 over 10 years — from 1998 to 2007, according to the report. In 2007, the latest year data was available, 573.3 of every 100,000 youths reported an STD, up from 430.9 in 1998.

The trend didn't surprise students walking to Newport Harbor High School on Wednesday morning.

"I know there's STDs at our school because everyone is sleeping around with each other," said senior Haley Giwoff, 17. "So, if one person gets it, it will spread quickly."

Students say the majority of their peers are having sex, and it's a common topic of discussion at school, where a couple of young girls are pregnant, and it's common knowledge that others have had abortions. Nobody talks about STDs, they say, because it would lead to being ostracized.

The report, released late last year, tracked four common sexually transmitted diseases — chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV — but does not include other common STDs such as the papillomavirus, which has a vaccine.

The trend comes at time when studies show high school students are making more conservative sexual decisions than they have in the past, says Amy Buch, a manager for the Health Care Agency's health promotion division.

"That (trend) would be counter to what we're seeing with chlamydia," Buch says. "One of the reasons I think this is challenging is because of the nature of chlamydia. The signs and symptoms are not very obvious. For some things people are more aware of, it's easier to get screened and treated."

The disease can cause men to feel pain when urinating, but women often experience no symptoms.

Across all age groups, chlamydia is the most common STD among the county's youth, with 772 cases reported in 2007 at a rate of 211.7 per 100,000 kids.

Nationwide statistics for chlamydia suggest teenagers in Orange County remain below national rates for the STD. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 66.1 of 100,000 youth ages 10 to 14 nationwide contracted the disease last year, compared to 18.3 in Orange County.

The county tracks rates among older teens for different age ranges than the CDC, so those numbers can't be compared.

One bright note in the county report: Sexually transmitted disease has decreased 24.1 percent among kids ages 10 to 14. Still, the decrease doesn't offset the overall spike in STDs because fewer younger teens are getting STDs at all.

Orange County health officials monitor the prevalence of sexually transmitted disease so they can target at-risk groups. For example, the STD Community Interventions program, paid for in part by a $45,425 annual grant from the state, teaches school and after-school employees about how to talk to kids about condoms, abstinence and making health sexual decisions. Last year, the program provided instruction for 246 people, Buch said. Funding for next year will be cut by about $4,500 as the state tries to balance its budget, Buch said.

Still, schools should be doing more to teach kids about sex, says Planned Parenthood's Stephanie Kight, who said lack of education is largely to blame for increasing STD rates.

She referred to a Planned Parenthood review of sex education curriculum in Orange County schools that found that sexual health education across the county is "inconsistent, largely inadequate, and in many cases out of compliance with state law," the review said.

One text book doesn't use the word condom, Kight said, and instead describes that form of contraception as "the barrier method."

"At night they're watching Britney Spears, and in the daytime they're talking about the barrier method. Really?" Kight said. "We need to not be afraid as parents, as schools, and as a community to talk to them about how to take care of themselves."

Giwoff says the sex education classes at her school are not believable because they imply everyone who has sex is going to get an STD.

"They try to scare us," she says. "They should be more realistic about it."

And students say sex education is just one part of the equation.

"It's mostly parenting," says Greyson Miller, 15. "Just not being there."

Izamar Torres, an 18-year-old senior, wants to make sure parents know that not all their kids are making bad decisions when it comes to sex. Many use condoms, and some aren't having sex at all.

"There are people who haven't done it," Torres said. "If you still have your virginity, you're extremely proud of it. You have major bragging rights."

Contact the writer: 714-796-7813 or jmuir@ocregister.com

I really am not surprised by this. Does anyone know of similar national studies?

[Steel]

The thing about STDs and other contagious, nonlethal diseases is that they always follow oscillating patterns which are totally independent of any social or moral changes. While of course these factors could influence the incidence of infection, in reality they aren't the driving force most of the time. Its like people acting shocked when a pendulum swings back the other way after swinging in the opposite direction for a while; given the forces acting on the pendulum it is a mathematical certainty that it will reverse its direction.
Spoiler

Let us partition the population into 2 groups, Healthy (people who have no immunity to the disease), Infected (people who have the contagious disease).

Let H and I be the number of people in each group. If N is the total number of people in the population, then H+I=P.

In order for an infection to take place, a healthy person needs to 'encounter' an infected. Consider that the probability of a healthy person meeting an infected person is proportional to H*I. We also know that infected people are cured at some rate (possibly 0, or perhaps they aren't cured but die and leave the population... but we'll consider a non fatal disease), so if no further infections took place the population of infected would decrease over time.

We now have that:

dH/dt = -a*HI +b*I = I*(b-a*H)

dI/dt = +a*HI - b*I = I*(a*H-b).

So we see that we have an equilibrium for the infections when H=b/a (or when I=0, but no infected people is a bit boring...). We can then perturb, linearize, and get a frequency for the oscillations. In this simplified model, to first order, we get that the small perturbation dies away as exp[-(P-b/a)t]. We would get more interesting behaviour if we didn't simplify things so much and linearize, but i cant do that in my head.

The gist of it is that if the number of infected people rises, then there are less healthy people, and so the probability of meeting one is reduced, and so the rate of infection will then drop, also if the same proportion recover in a given time frame then more are cured, and when the number of infected drops a bit, then there are more healthy people to infect and fewer people are cured in a certain time frame, and so the number of infected increases. The number of cases of syphilis reported in New York has been on a 10 year cycle due to this for about the past century, and each time it swings one way or the other theres always a cry of slipping morals or great works in public health .

[Zixinus]

I'd like to ask: is it purely due to the conservatives that sex education has reached this level of failure?

[Phantasee]

The thing about STDs and other contagious, nonlethal diseases is that they always follow oscillating patterns which are totally independent of any social or moral changes. While of course these factors could influence the incidence of infection, in reality they aren't the driving force most of the time. Its like people acting shocked when a pendulum swings back the other way after swinging in the opposite direction for a while; given the forces acting on the pendulum it is a mathematical certainty that it will reverse its direction.
Spoiler

Let us partition the population into 2 groups, Healthy (people who have no immunity to the disease), Infected (people who have the contagious disease).

Let H and I be the number of people in each group. If N is the total number of people in the population, then H+I=P.

In order for an infection to take place, a healthy person needs to 'encounter' an infected. Consider that the probability of a healthy person meeting an infected person is proportional to H*I. We also know that infected people are cured at some rate (possibly 0, or perhaps they aren't cured but die and leave the population... but we'll consider a non fatal disease), so if no further infections took place the population of infected would decrease over time.

We now have that:

dH/dt = -a*HI +b*I = I*(b-a*H)

dI/dt = +a*HI - b*I = I*(a*H-b).

So we see that we have an equilibrium for the infections when H=b/a (or when I=0, but no infected people is a bit boring...). We can then perturb, linearize, and get a frequency for the oscillations. In this simplified model, to first order, we get that the small perturbation dies away as exp[-(P-b/a)t]. We would get more interesting behaviour if we didn't simplify things so much and linearize, but i cant do that in my head.

The gist of it is that if the number of infected people rises, then there are less healthy people, and so the probability of meeting one is reduced, and so the rate of infection will then drop, also if the same proportion recover in a given time frame then more are cured, and when the number of infected drops a bit, then there are more healthy people to infect and fewer people are cured in a certain time frame, and so the number of infected increases. The number of cases of syphilis reported in New York has been on a 10 year cycle due to this for about the past century, and each time it swings one way or the other theres always a cry of slipping morals or great works in public health .

Can you link some studies about this? I'd be interested in learning more.

[Ekiqa]

I'd like to ask: is it purely due to the conservatives that sex education has reached this level of failure?

I'd like to say yes, as the more liberal Western countries do not have this much of a problem. I went to one of the largest schools in Toronto, and there was neither girls pregnant, nor wide spread STD's amongst the students. We've also had sex-ed classes and been told about condoms since about grade 4. Atleast, thats my earliest memory of such classes.

[Wicked Pilot]

I'd like to ask: is it purely due to the conservatives that sex education has reached this level of failure?

Incompetency can be found in all fields of education and it's certainly not all the conservatives fault. But when it comes to the abstinence only programs and the massive, massive failures associated with those (cough cough Lubbock, Texas) you can rightly point the finger there. There aren't many liberals out there trying deliberately to torpedo sex education.

[KrauserKrauser]

Also, of all places in the country, I would not put Orange County, Ca I'm assuming, as a bastion of conservative policy and thought.

It would be interesting to see what their Sex Ed policies and procedures are and contrast them to a similarily liberal, highly populated, and affluent County to see the disconnects.

Then again, it could just be that the kids are fucking alot, but I'm betting it's not much more than in other areas.

[Questor]

Also, of all places in the country, I would not put Orange County, Ca I'm assuming, as a bastion of conservative policy and thought.

It would be interesting to see what their Sex Ed policies and procedures are and contrast them to a similarily liberal, highly populated, and affluent County to see the disconnects.

Orange county is not highly liberal at all. It may be affluent, but there are a large number of conservatives here. The idea of Democrats winning elected office in most of Orange County is considered a joke.

Do not assume that states, or even sections of states, are single thought blocks. There are areas of Texas that vote Democrat almost as regularly as San Francisco, and there are areas of California that would never vote anything other than Republican.

See: San Diego and Orange County

Edit: Fixed punctuation

[KrauserKrauser]

Learn something new every day.

Insert "The More you know" picture here.

[Kanastrous]

Orange County's general level of conservatism is the topic of jokes, in Southern California.

At least, in Los Angeles County it is.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Also, of all places in the country, I would not put Orange County, Ca I'm assuming, as a bastion of conservative policy and thought.

It would be interesting to see what their Sex Ed policies and procedures are and contrast them to a similarily liberal, highly populated, and affluent County to see the disconnects.

Orange county is not highly liberal at all. It may be affluent, but there are a large number of conservatives here. The idea of Democrats winning elected office in most of Orange County is considered a joke.

Do not assume that states, or even sections of states, are single thought blocks. There are areas of Texas that vote Democrat almost as regularly as San Francisco, and there are areas of California that would never vote anything other than Republican.

See: San Diego and Orange County

Edit: Fixed punctuation

Actually, not only is Orange County not liberal, it is a bastion of conservative politics. There's a reason why some of us call the county border between LA and OC the "Orange Curtain". I'm not surprising actually to see these kinds of results in the OC where abstinence-only education is promoted amongst conservatives. The OC is reliably conservative.

[Questor]

Actually, not only is Orange County not liberal, it is a bastion of conservative politics. There's a reason why some of us call the county border between LA and OC the "Orange Curtain". I'm not surprising actually to see these kinds of results in the OC where abstinence-only education is promoted amongst conservatives. The OC is reliably conservative.

I was being kind, I'll stop.

Orange County is not only a bastion of normal conservative thought, but Huntington Beach, according to the ADL, is one of the headquarters of the neo-nazi movement.

EDIT, fixed my quote tag. (I really need to get back in the habit of using preview)

[Darth Fanboy]

OC is the home of Rick Warren's megachurch and the Crystal Cathedral, I thought everyone knew by now that this place is so far to the right that it's fallen off the scale.

[KrauserKrauser]

All I have to go on is reruns of the OC and they never really struck me as the conservative type.

Go go Hollywood!