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Characteristics associated with genital herpes testing among young adults: assessing factors from two national data
Lisa K Gilbert1, Brooke A Levandowski, Craig M Roberts
1American Social Health Association, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA. LisaGilbert@ASHAstd.org
Unlabelled:
OBJECTIVES AND PARTICIPANTS: in the United States, genital herpes (GH) prevalence is 10.6% among 20- to 29-year-olds and about 90% of seropositive persons do not know their status. This study investigated individual characteristics associated with GH screening and diagnosis in sexually active young adults aged 18 to 24.
Methods:
two data sets were analyzed: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) Wave III from 2001 to 2002 (n = 11,570) and the American College Health Association's (ACHA's) national survey of college students from 2000 to 2006 (n = 222,470).
Results:
in Add Health, 18.4% of females and 7.1% of males self-reported GH testing in the previous 12 months, compared to 0.7% for self-reported GH diagnosis in ACHA. GH testing and diagnosis was strongly positively associated with a history of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing and diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the previous 12 months for both sexes.
Conclusions:
integrating herpes screening and testing into HIV and standard STI screening would identify more infections.
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