Allen County residents have a higher infection rate of America’s most common sexually transmitted disease than the national average, and the rate has risen steadily over the past decade.
In 2008, Indiana’s rate for chlamydia was 401 cases per 100,000 people, lower than the national rate of 496.35 per 100,000 people. But Allen County’s rate was 539 cases per 100,000, said Dr. Deb McMahan, Allen County health commissioner.
Rates of gonorrhea infection have also risen in recent years, McMahan said.
Chlamydia is caused by a bacterium, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though symptoms are usually mild or nonexistent, serious complications can cause irreversible damage, including infertility, before a woman realizes she has a problem, according to the CDC.
What especially concerns McMahan is the disease’s rate among young people ages 15 to 24. In 2008, Indiana’s chlamydia infection rate for that age group was more than 1,800 cases per 100,000 people, according to the CDC.
In northeast Indiana, that age group also shows disproportionate chlamydia infection rates, accounting for nearly three-fourths of total cases in 2008, according to data from the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health.
“It’s a barometer of what’s going on with our young people,” McMahan said.
McMahan created her own term for the mind-set that causes some young people to take sexual risks: “magical thinking.”
“They really just think it’s not going to happen to them,” she said. “People think they’ll know if a sex partner has it.”
But often, the diseases are asymptomatic, especially in men. McMahan recalls one girl who visited the county’s sexually transmitted disease clinic who said she’d had three sexual partners. The girl was insistent she couldn’t have an STD, but it turned out she had four – chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes and human papillomavirus.
Programs such as those offered by the non-profit McMillen Center for Health Education in Fort Wayne aim to reduce such cases.
The center provides educational programs to public, private and parochial schools and occasionally youth centers and youth groups as far as 100 miles away.
Just because young people are constantly exposed to sexual messages and images doesn’t mean they know about sexual health, said Linda Hathaway, McMillen Center program manager.
McMillen’s staff has seen some young people so uninformed about sexual health that they think the term “sexually transmitted diseases” means sex itself can cause a disease. Others don’t know that some sex acts, such as oral sex, can also transmit diseases, Hathaway said.
Today’s youth face temptations unimagined by their parents – such as racy photos sent by cell phone or “sexting” – and Hathaway said the center tries to keep up with trends.
But the core message of respect for oneself and one’s peers remains the same, Hathaway said.
“Decisions you’re making today about your behavior are going to set you up for various consequences,” she said.
Sexually transmitted diseases in the past were taboo topics, and the health department’s McMahan said her staff sees that stigma lessened in younger generations. That can be a good thing when it comes to education, she said, but not when young people become numb to the risks the diseases carry.
“They don’t look at the world like we do,” she said. “I don’t think what we’re doing now is enough.”
