Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health articles from September 2004

Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health archives from September 2004

In this issue.
September 1, 2004... In two-thirds of states, at least some categories of minors are legally entitled to consent to contraceptive services; throughout the country, most minors can consent to testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. However,...

Illegitimate illegitimacy bonuses?(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Are Alabama, Michigan and Washington, D.C., to the illegitimacy bonus what some people think Paul Hamm is to the Olympic gymnastics gold medal? Maybe, according to and analysis of birth and census data for these top three winners of the annual...

HAART: no help for the head.(FYI)(Highly active antiretroviral therapy)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Despite the effectiveness of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), the mental health of New York City women with HIV is no better now than it was in pre-HAART years, according to a study comparing two matched samples of infected women,...

Get down with HIV education.(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Clubgoers and barhoppers in North Carolina, beware: The dude who just asked you to dance or bought you a drink may be an undercover health educator, sent to your favorite social venue by the state health department to teach you a thing or two...

Take seven aspirin ...(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Women who have taken aspirin at least weekly for six months or longer have 20% lower odds of developing breast cancer than nonusers, according to results of a case-control study conducted in 1996-1997 in two New York counties. (1) The odds of...

Congenital syphilis declines.(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Continuing a roughly decade-long decline, the rate of congenital syphilis fell 21%, from 14.2 to 11.2 cases per 100,000 live births, between 2000 and 2002. (1) An analysis of national surveillance data shows that the rate was stable (at 1.5...

Safer sex under the stars.(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... When you think of groups of people who are at high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), chances are that backpackers don't spring to mind, but a group of Australian family planning and research organizations are concerned...

Barrier to pelvic disease.(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Women who have had pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) can reduce their risk of its recurrence if they use condoms consistently. (1) In a multisite U.S. study of 684 sexually active women who had an episode of PID in 1996-1999, those subsequently...

The epidemic that wasn't.(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... A national cervical cancer screening program put in place by the British government in 1988 reversed the trend of rapidly increasing incidence of the disease that began in the late 1960s, but even that achievement only hints at the program's...

Dating and drinking.(FYI)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... "The thunder of teen dating practices and sexual activity may signal the lightning of substance abuse": This is one key message stemming from results of an annual survey of 12-17-year-olds conducted by the National Center on Addiction and...

Confidential reproductive health services for minors: the potential impact of mandated parental involvement for contraception.
September 1, 2004... The extent to which parents are, or should be, involved in their adolescent children's sexual and reproductive health decisions is a complicated issue. No federal law guarantees adolescents the universal right to confidential services for...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
September 1, 2004... In "A Comparison of Hispanic and White Adolescent Females' Use of Family Planning Services in California," by M. Rosa Solorio et al. [2004, 36(2):157-161], the final panel of Table 2 should be labeled "Ever been pregnant, among those who used...

Differences between mistimed and unwanted pregnancies among women who have live births.
September 1, 2004... Nearly one-third of live U.S. births are the result of an unintended pregnancy--one that was either mistimed (occurred earlier than desired) or unwanted. (1) A study using data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) estimated...

Measuring factors underlying intendedness of women's first and later pregnancies.
September 1, 2004... Fertility researchers have long struggled with how to assess gaps in family planning and reproductive health services. One indicator of these gaps that is of great interest to program planners and policymakers is the proportion of pregnancies...

The availability and use of publicly funded family planning clinics: U.S. trends, 1994-2001.
September 1, 2004... Each year, more than 20 million American women obtain contraceptive services from a medical provider. (1) One in four (24%) receive that care from a publicly funded family planning clinic. In addition to providing clients with a broad choice of...

Minority women can benefit from ethnically tailored programs to reduce sexually transmitted disease risk.(Digests)
September 1, 2004... Black and Mexican American women who participated in ethnically tailored behavioral interventions to prevent sexually transmitted disease (STD) had lower risks of subsequently acquiring gonorrhea or chlamydia than those receiving usual...

Venous thromboembolism risk is sharply elevated for users of combined pills.(Digests)
September 1, 2004... Women who use oral contraceptives containing progestin and a low dose of estrogen have an increased risk of venous thromboembolism--a blood clot that forms in the veins of the legs and may detach and travel to the lungs. (1) In a...

Disease risk is increased for those with wrong ideas about partner's behavior.(Digests)
September 1, 2004... Young adults often have misconceptions about whether a new sexual partner has other partners, and those with such misconceptions may be at increased risk of being infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD). (1) In a clinic-based sample...

Subgroups of homeless in San Francisco have different HIV risk factors.(Digests)
September 1, 2004... Members of San Francisco's indigent population have many sexual and other risk factors that put them at particularly high risk of HIV infection. (1) Among a sample of the city's homeless and marginally housed population, the overall HIV...

For Finnish women, pregnancy-associated death rate is lower than overall rate, but risks vary by age.(Digests)
September 1, 2004... Women who are pregnant or have been pregnant in the past year have a nearly 40% lower risk of dying from natural causes than their nonpregnant counterparts, according to a retrospective, population-based study in Finland. (1) Compared with...

Common-law unions tied to infant death and other negative birth outcomes.(Digests)
September 1, 2004... Despite the growing prevalence and acceptability of common-law marriages in Quebec, women in this type of union continue to be at greater risk for negative birth outcomes than those in traditional marriages. (1) According to a study of births...