Recently the Health Services Agency published the first comprehensive Stanislaus County Community Health Assessment. One section deals with sexually transmitted diseases and demonstrates our success in decreasing this community's burden of AIDS and gonorrhea. However, we continue to wage a difficult battle against the silent epidemic of chlamydia.

What is chlamydia? Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted disease. Most people infected with chlamydia are not aware of their infections and therefore may not seek health care.

When diagnosed, chlamydia can be easily treated. Untreated, chlamydia can cause both short- and long-term consequences, including pelvic inflammatory disease (which can result in infertility) and potentially fatal tubal pregnancies.

This epidemic is most evident in our teens. In Stanislaus County, 75 percent of the reported chlamydia cases in 2001 were among young people between the ages of 14-25.

Five of the 10 most common reported infectious diseases in Stanislaus County are sexually transmitted. Chlamydia tops this list with 1,237 cases reported in 2001 -- double the number of hepatitis C cases and 90 times the number of AIDS cases.

This alarming data indicates more prevention tools are needed. Prevention programs and messages need to include multiple strategies. Research shows effective prevention programs provide instruction to develop communication skills to resist peer pressure and negotiate contraceptive use; opportunities to explore and develop beliefs and values regarding sexuality; and are culturally and developmentally appropriate with respect to content and instructional methods.

The primary prevention strategy needs to remain health education on the many benefits of sexual abstinence. However, a comprehensive prevention strategy must not ignore the reality that some teens may choose risk behaviors.

Therefore, information on correct condom use cannot be overlooked. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Adolescence and the American Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecology released policy statements during the summer of 2001 endorsing the use of latex condoms for primary and secondary prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, reduce the risk of STDs and pregnancy.

Moreover, supportive familial relations, increased community involvement, access to medical services and empowering media messages are factors that have a positive influence on reducing risk behaviors.

Let us jointly attack the silent epidemic of chlamydia among our teens, and recognize that a comprehensive prevention and eradication program needs to include multiple strategies: education, screening and treatment.

Dr. Walker is the Stanislaus County public health officer. The report of the Community Health Assessment can be viewed on the Health Services Agency Web site at www.hsahealth.org.

Reprinted by permission of the Modesto Bee.