Despite repeated recommendations to provide reproductive health services to teenage boys as well as girls, few adolescent males are getting the information they need to protect themselves from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, a new study reports.
Fewer than one-quarter of boys ages 15 to 19 were counseled about sexually transmitted diseases or HIV by a health care provider during the previous year, according to a national survey of 1,121 young men done in 2002, representing no significant change since 1995, when a similar proportion received such counseling, the study found.
Young men who had three or more female partners or engaged in oral or anal sex with male partners were more likely to have received counseling; about one third said they had been counseled about sexually transmitted diseases in 2002. But a similar proportion of those engaging in risky sexual activities received counseling in 1995, the study found.
Even fewer young men were counseled about birth control: fewer than one-fifth discussed contraception with a health care provider, the 2002 study reported. Almost two-thirds of sexually active young women have received such services, other reports indicate.
“The medical system is really set up to serve women and maternal-child health in ways that aren’t addressing young men’s needs,” said Dr. Arik Marcell, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the paper, which appeared in The Journal of Adolescent Health. Some of the young men may not have even seen a health care provider during the previous year, he noted.
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