The up-to-the-minute version of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ’s biannual report on teen devilry , theYouth peril Behavior Surveillance System , has revealed that high schoolhouse - aged Americans arehaving less sexthan at any point since the assessment task begin nearly 20 years ago .
base on 15,000 surveys filled out by stripling at 144 schooling in all province except for Oregon , Washington , Wyoming , and Minnesota in 2017 , about 40 percent of US students have engaged in sexual coitus with a pardner of the opposite or same sexual practice – in 1991 , the figure was 54 per centum .
Yet before we tip our hats to the current teen generation ’s apparent improvement in decision - devising compared to their precursor , the comprehensive,479 - page studyquickly steer out that the symmetry of sexually active individuals who are using condoms is almost 10 pct lower than the rate found in 2005 ( 53.8 vs. 62.8 percent ) .
According to the research team , employment of prophylactic – the only nascence control method that also protect against sexually transmitted infections – was on a promising upward flight from 1991 ( 46.2 percent ) to 2005 . But then , frustratingly , it began to decline . start that same twelvemonth , the percentage of teens who had ever been tested for HIV began to drop as well ( 11.9 to 9.3 pct ) . The proportion of sexually active teens not using any method acting to prevent maternity , an obviously risky doings , gratefully did decline between 1991 and 2007 ( 17 to 12 per centum ) but has since continue stiff instead of go along to better .
“ The more kids have a go at it about it , the less mystique there is about it , [ thus ] the more they desire to wait , ” Cora Breuner , a pediatrist and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Adolescence , theorize toScience Newsabout the cause of the reduced sexual activity pattern .
“ I ’m actually more concerned about the lack of condom employment , ” she added , attributing this phenomenon to theincreasing popularity of long - acting preventative , such as IUDs and dermalimplantsand less fear of HIV .
“ We are not doing a good job informing kids about protect themselves from have unbalanced with infection that can last the rest of their life and have important negative outcomes , admit infertility and even death . ”
Other highlighting ( and worrying lowlights ) from the report card , which quantifies trends in six categories of teen wellness , include:- The charge per unit of cigarette smoking is down by two - thirds since 1991 ; 8.8 percent of gamey school day student had smoked fag on at least 1 day during the 30 twenty-four hour period before the 2017 YRBSS sketch , compared with 27.5 percentage in the first survey .
Almost 40 percent of drive teens admitted to texting or emailing behind the wheel in the last 30 days .
Only 16 per centum had drive in a car with a number one wood who had been tope , the rate was 40 percentage in 1991 .
43 percentage used a computer for 3 or more hours per twenty-four hours on an median schooling day for something that was not schoolhouse work .
Almost 15 percent were weighty and 16 percent were overweight .
In the year prior to the study , 19 percent reported that they had been bullied and 7.4 percentage had essay suicide . Earlier this calendar month , another CDC account establish that suicide pace among 10- to 19 - year - oldshave rise 56 percent from 2007 .
