Contraceptive use.

US contraceptive trends, reported from the National Center for Health Statistics National Survey of Family Growth show that. “In 1982, for instance, 52 percent of sexually experienced women said they had used condoms.” By 1995, however, “condom use had jumped to 82 percent – possibly because of the years of ‘use-a-condom’ public announcements related to the battle against AIDS – and by 2010, usage reached 93 percent, said the federal researchers.” Comment: for those of us who are interested in reducing sexually transmitted infections and monitoring fertility rates this appears to be very good news.  However because it is a set of cross-sectional interviews this tells us what the participants said at the time but tells little about whether a contraceptive method was used at every sexual encounter, neither does it tell us anything about the partners of the women.  The national survey of family growth should have a subset of women followed over several years to determine how valid the reported periodic comments, and accompanied by a companion survey of males.
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - Category: Epidemiologists Authors: Tags: behavioral change Community Health epidemiology policy Prevention Surveillance Source Type: blogs