More young people using condoms

There has been a substantial increase in the rate of condom use, particularly among young people. However, condom use is inconsistent among people who report high rates of new sexual partners. Researchers from the University of Brighton, UK, explored trends in condom use over time using data from 13,765 residents of Britain aged 16 to 44 surveyed in 1990 and 11,161 similarly aged individuals surveyed in 2000. Condom use among sexually active 16- to 24-year-old men increased significantly from 61 percent in 1990 to about 82 percent in 2000. For women of the same age, condom use by their male partners increased from 42 percent to a little more than 63 percent. In general, smaller increases were seen among older age groups in the survey. The data also suggests that younger people are more likely to use condoms for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS, the virus that causes AIDS. Young people use condoms more than they did in 1990, yet rates of STIs have risen since the 1990s. The study suggests that a major reason for this is likely to be that about two-thirds of individuals who have multiple sexual partners (defined as 2 or more partners in the past 4 weeks) use condoms only some of the time. Unless these individuals use condoms consistently and correctly, every time, they are likely to catch as well as transmit STIs. Individuals who often have new partners, or multiple partners, are an important group for health education, who should be encouraged to always use condoms.