CDC SAYS MORE TEENS HAVING SEX

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 4, 1992                   TAG: 9201040159
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Medium
CDC SAYS MORE TEENS HAVING SEX
More than half the nation's high school students have had sex, including seven of 10 by their senior year, according to a survey released Friday by federal health officials.
The survey of health habits among 11,631 students in grades 9-12 showed that 54 percent say they have had sexual intercourse, the national Centers for Disease Control reported.
"We're particularly concerned about the increase at each grade level," said Dr. Lloyd Kolbe, director of the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.
Among ninth-graders, 40 percent have had sex, according to the CDC survey. At 10th grade, it's 48 percent. By 11th grade, it's 57 percent, and by 12th grade, it's 72 percent.
The survey, conducted in 1990, was the first of its kind for the CDC, so data are not available from earlier years. But researchers believe high school students weren't nearly as sexually active in earlier generations, Kolbe said.
"It wasn't like this; it has increased," he said.
Increasing numbers of sexually active students mean increasing numbers at risk for health problems, CDC researchers said.
"We're concerned about basically three major public health epidemics here," Kolbe said. "The first is the epidemic of pregnancy among teen-agers. . . . We're concerned about sexually transmitted diseases, including the newer STDs like herpes, papilloma virus, chlamydia. And we're very concerned about the extent to which these behaviors put young people at risk for the virus which causes AIDS."
One in 25 students reported having a sexually transmitted disease.
Overall, boys in high school are more likely than girls to have had sex, 61 percent to 48 percent, the survey found. And black students are more likely than Hispanic students or white students to have had sex - 72 percent to 53 percent and 52 percent, respectively.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB