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 the past decade emphasized abstinence. As a result, sexual health indicators are poor.