Efforts to reduce risky sexual behavior among U.S. high school students have stalled in the past decade and urgent action is needed to stem HIV infection rates in young people, who account for nearly half of all new cases, public health officials say.
The National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday, analyzed twenty years of national HIV-related risk behavior data on U.S. high school students primarily between the ages of 14 and 17.
It found that while progress was made in the 1990s, when a decline was seen in the number of students who admitted to having multiple sexual partners, those rates have largely held steady since 2001.
