As thousands of young people from around the world join advocates, scientists, policymakers, journalists and health care providers at the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto this week, the fact that 15–24-year-olds account for nearly half of the five million new cases of HIV infection worldwide each year is sure to be frequently cited. Less widely known is that 15–24-year-olds account for half of the 40,000 new infections in the United States. Young Americans also account for nearly half of new diagnoses of STIs other than HIV. Like adolescents everywhere, American teens need honest, complete information about sexual health to better protect themselves.

There are three primary ways to avoid STIs, including HIV: Avoid sex altogether, be in a long-term, mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner and use condoms consistently and correctly. Effective prevention efforts must include all of these elements. Yet the U.S. government pours millions of dollars into restrictive and unproven abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that don’t address the realities of teens’ lives and may even increase their risk of contracting an infection or facing an unwanted pregnancy. And some policymakers cast doubt upon the effectiveness of condoms, despite overwhelming evidence that they prevent the most serious infection (HIV), the most easily transmitted infections (gonorrhea, chlamydia and HPV) and unplanned pregnancy.

"As a global leader in the HIV prevention effort, the United States has an obligation to support medically accurate information and proven programs to help young people around the world keep themselves safe and healthy well into the future," says Heather Boonstra, senior policy associate with the Guttmacher Institute. "While we’re doing this, we also need to focus on protecting the next generation here at home. Promoting ignorance and shame in place of information and support, as many abstinence-only programs do, leaves our young people without the practical and emotional tools they need to protect themselves today and tomorrow."

To learn more about abstinence promotion in the United States, click here.

For more information on public funding for abstinence-only sex education, click here.

For more information on U.S. global AIDS policy toward youth, click here.

For adolescents’ perspectives on their sexual and reproductive health (In Their Own Words), click here.