JAMA
Andrea Swartzendruber, MPH; Jonathan M. Zenilman, MD
JAMA. 2010;304(9):1005-1006. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.1252
Sexual health is an integrated care-delivery and prevention concept that recognizes sexual expression as normative and encompasses preventive and treatment services throughout the life span. However, the United States lacks an integrated approach to sexual health. Public health programs such as sexually transmitted disease (STD)/human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and family planning are categorically funded and organizationally fragmented, and federal reproductive health programs in thepast decade emphasized abstinence. As a result, sexual healthindicators are poor. Incidence of HIV has not decreased sincethe 1990s,1 and rates of STDs, unintended pregnancy, teen pregnancy,and abortion are higher than in many developed countries.2 “Sexual health” does not appear once in the more than 1000 pages ofthe new health care legislation. Nevertheless, the public is keenly interested in sexual health, as evidenced by the uptake of recent medical advances. For example, there are . . . [Full Text of this Article]
What Is “Sexual Health”?
Author Affiliations: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Ms Swartzendruber) and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Dr Zenilman), Baltimore, Maryland.
Leave a Reply