Worried About Confidentiality, Many Youths Avoid Sexual Health Care

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Young people on their parents’ workplace-based insurance plans may forgo sexual or reproductive health care due to privacy concerns.

January 3, 2017

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Adolescents and young adults may avoid seeking sexual and reproductive health care out of concern that their parents will find out about it, Medscape reports.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers analyzed data from the 2013 to 2015 National Survey of Family Growth and published their findings about 15- to 25-year-olds in a data brief.

A total of 7.4 percent of the young people said they would not seek sexual or reproductive health because of confidentiality concerns, including 17.9 parent of those 15 to 17 years old, 6.6 percent of those 18 to 19 years old, 3.9 percent of those 20 to 22 years old, and 1.8 percent of those 23 to 25 years old.

Among females, the respective proportion of those who sought sexual or reproductive health care if they did versus those who did not have concerns about their parents finding out was 19.9 percent versus 34 percent for 15- to 17-year-olds, and 53.1 percent versus 72.9 percent for 18- to 25-year-olds. The corresponding proportions for males were 7.5 percent versus 5.9 percent, and 6.8 percent versus 13.6 percent.

Driving these concerns was the fact that many young people are insured through their parents’ workplace-based health plans.

Only 38.1 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds spent at least some of their visit to a health care provider alone during the previous year. Those who had a private audience with a clinician were more likely to receive sexual or reproductive health care than those who did not have time alone with a health care provider.

To read the Medscape article, click here (free registration with the site is required). 

To read the CDC data brief, click here.

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