More than half of Garland County high school students are sexually active with over one-third of those students engaging in unprotected intercourse, putting them at a high risk for unplanned pregnancy and/or contracting sexually transmitted infections. 1 in 3 Garland County females between the ages of fifteen and nineteen become pregnant.
In addition to these statistics, a recent national study found that nearly half of African-American teenagers ages 14 to 19 and twenty percent of Caucasian teenagers in the study were infected with at least one of the sexually transmitted diseases monitored in the study — human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, genital herpes, and trichomoniasis, a common parasite. Clearly, Garland County teens either do not fully understand the consequences of their decisions and/or have the information they need to protect themselves.
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