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Summary: STDs affect teens by causing potential viral infections that will last forever, or by leading to a social stigma that makes teenagers anxious and fearful of social contact. Learn about the importance of preventing sexually transmitted diseases with information from a physician's assistant in this free video on STDs.
Albert Hedgepeth Jr. graduated from physician's assistant school at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1980. He currently works as a P.A. in gynecology for Wake County, but has experience in cardiac...read more
"In our society today teens feel much freer to experiment sexually. A lot of times it is associated with some drug experimentation also, and can occur as early as late elementary school. When women or young kids are polled, particularly females, most of them have been sexually active by the end of middle school. It's estimated from The United States Heath Department data that one in four teens has had a sexually transmitted disease each year, and by age twenty five that half the sexually active population has had an STD, so STD's are very serious and very prominent. Several of them are curable with antibiotics. Others, which are more of a viral nature, such as Hepatitis B, HIV, and Herpes, are not curable, and then you'd have to live with the symptoms of those problems for the rest of your life, either by staying on medication to suppress the outbreak or to treat occurrences or outbreaks that are acute. There's also the social stigma of having had an STD in teens which can make one feel anxious and limit social contact."
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