Risk, health promotion, disease intervention and sexually transmitted disease

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are a major public health problem, causing enormous human suffering and heavy health care expenditures. With the list of STDs having expanded fourfold in recent years and the incidence of several of these diseases increasing annually, an urgent need exists for investigators, clinicians and public health practitioners to collaborate in developing the most cost-effective STD prevention and intervention strategies (Table 7). Achievement of this goal will require that key risk factors associated with current STD trends be closely scrutinized and appropriate health promotion messages better emphasized.