Study reveals need for increased AIDS education

Today is World AIDS Day, dedicated to increasing AIDS awareness. A study recently published by IU's Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention reflects the need for increased education on sexually transmitted diseases.\nFrom February to July 1999, the IU Center for Survey Research conducted a random telephone survey of 328 rural South Carolina women between 18 and 39 years of age who reported that they had had sex with a male within the past year. The survey found that 45 percent of the women demonstrated two or more at-risk sexual behaviors and some 20 percent reported three or more at-risk behaviors during a typical month of the past year.\nThe results of this survey were analyzed by the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention, and the findings appeared in the current issue of the Health Education Monograph series published by Eta Sigma Gamma, a national professional health education honorary organization.\nSouth Carolina was selected for the study because of its high rates of HIV/STD incidence. \n"In 1997, South Carolina reported more cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia than any other state or territory and the fourth highest number of primary and secondary syphilis cases," said professor William Yarber, senior director of the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention, who directed the study, in a press release.\nThe participants were from the four South Carolina counties of Chesterfield, Florence, Lancaster and Marion.\nYarber was assisted in the study by Stephanie Sanders, associate director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, and Richard Crosby of Emory University.\nYarber said the study found women who report risky behaviors are more likely to report an STD infection. Examples of risky sexual behavior cited by Yarber include not using a condom for intercourse, oral sex, anal sex and intercourse during menstruation. Yarber said nine women in the South Carolina study reported being diagnosed with an STD infection in the past year.\nYarber noted that although more than 90 percent of the women in the study had only one sex partner in the past year, they still might face risks. He said they have less risk than women with multiple male sex partners, but they still should be wary because their partners might have other partners.\nHe cited a recent study elsewhere reporting that 20 percent of sexually active women were at risk for HIV/STD because their male partners had two or more sexual partners, and many of those women did not use condoms. Further, many of these women did not know that their partners had other partners.