So, you found someone you want to take home. The collisions of whatever intangible things — the week you just had, the dress she’s wearing, your history with him — led you both to decide that sex was on the table tonight. You walk home together, swallowed up in the moment.
Between fumbling in the dark, looking for the wallet sitting in the back pocket of the pants you threw god-knows-where, you might think, “Do I really need a condom?”
If you’ve ever been there, you may want to think twice the next time you decide the mood is too right to awkwardly inquire about sexual history because the risks of contracting a sexually transmitted infection these days are just as real, if not worse, than they were a decade ago.
A countywide public hearing was held in Columbia Hall last month, but barely more than ten people peppered the seats of the large, dilapidated assembly. What they were discussing was a matter that could affect everyone in Eugene and Lane County, but the general disinterest was as indicative of the problem as the powerpoint slides presented that day. Public health officials for the county, as well as members of the HIV Alliance and Planned Parenthood, proclaimed that sexually transmitted infections, as well as cases of whooping cough and E. coli, have been rising for years.
“We have doubled our cases of gonorrhea over the last five years and we have only raised 1 percent in population [in Lane County],” said Patrick Luedtke, a Lane County public health officer and the hearing’s main speaker. “We’re at a point now where the levels are high enough where we all need to change our behavior.”
Apathy has long contributed to the rise in sexually transmitted infections. A study released last month by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada found that only half of students aged 18 to 24 use condoms. Between July and October, Lane County has seen 68 cases of gonorrhea and, according to Lane County health and human services officer Jason Davis, this is about four times the representation expected for a county of Lane’s size and demographic. Fourteen cases of syphilis have also concerned health officials because it’s still treatable with penicillin, although other viruses have become resistant.
Syphilis is still potentially fatal if left untreated.
The University of Oregon is grappling with growing incidents of gonorrhea and chlamydia as well. Jim Mough, the lab supervisor at the health center, has been keeping his eye on the growing rates of STIs for years now. In the 2009-10 school year, there were only two positive cases of gonorrhea. This year, there were 17 reported cases. Meanwhile, chlamydia has climbed from 75 positive tests in 2008-09 to 141 in 2012-13. Fall term saw the first reported case of syphilis on campus in five years.
“I think some of this is driven by the fact that funding for the public health department has changed a little bit, there are no longer walk-in clinics for STIs,” Mough said. According to him, counties across the state haven’t been able to do as much outreach as they had in the past. “You have to make an appointment, and I think public health used to be an easier approach for some students who might be concerned about confidentiality.”
Condom usage peaked a decade ago and has stalled since, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Richard Chartoff, a UO chemistry professor and researcher, recently acquired a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to design a thinner and more durable condom. His application proposes a one-size-fits-all condom that’s half as thin as today’s, with nano particles to fight infection.
Sarah Sprague, a student and peer health educator for the health center, agrees that the rise in infections in young people could be attributed to the rate of condom use.
“It’s frightening,” she said. “I think a big issue in college is risk perception. People know that chlamydia is out there, that people die from smoking or that people die when they don’t wear bike helmets, but they say ‘Oh no, that can’t happen to me.’”
Oregon has seen increases in these STIs recently. Since 2010, reported cases of gonorrhea in Oregon have increased more than 40 percent — in Lane County, it’s a 300 percent for the same period. Luedtke insists that it’s well within the power of the county’s citizens to get themselves tested to ensure they are not spreading these diseases unknowingly.
“There’s no shortage of resources for STDs,” Luedtke said. “You can get free care. You can get anonymous care at the health department. You can call the community health centers at Lane County.”
One theory for the increases in chlamydia and gonorrhea on campus has been that the tests were, for about a year, free to all students. According to Mough, the ASUO picked up the tab by allocating a lump sum of about $160,000 to the health center to cover HIV and STI testing. Students who wouldn’t normally have made the decision to spend $20 on a test didn’t have to.
“We really think it was a good way to spend the money for our students,” Mough said. “For a lot of students, the $20 or $40 for the tests — that makes the difference on how much you eat during the week.”
Once that well ran dry, the health center was forced to charge for chlamydia and gonorrhea tests once again. Still, the UO is trying many new ways to curb the increasing cases of infection. Over the summer, workers at the health center had been looking for a more proactive way to reach students. According to them, about one-third of students never even step foot in their clinics, despite paying for access lumped in with their tuition. Keith Van Norman, the health center’s marketing manager, decided that the most effective way to reach students was to put the information right in their pockets in the form of a smartphone app.
“There’s all these people, they need sexual health information, maybe they don’t know where the clinic is,” Sprague said. “How can we reach out to those students who aren’t coming in? What’s an accessible way to reach them?”
SexPositive, which launched on Oct. 15, has been downloaded more than 8,000 times. The free app has been praised by famed sex columnist Dan Savage and on Twitter. Fox News panned the app in a segment that focused on Savage’s visit to campus in October.
Still, while Van Norman knows that SexPositive won’t be a final answer to the growing STI rate, he hopes that putting the information in front of students is a step in the right direction.
“We’ve had a great partnership with ASUO where they helped us out with HIV testing, but there’s gonorrhea and chlamydia are on the rise or are doing different things,” Norman said. “We need to address that and this is one way we can address the STI stuff.”
The folks at the UO health center are hopeful that funding will come in the future from the ASUO to help the battle against sexually transmitted diseases and infections, but they understand it’s going to be a campaign. Mough is particularly optimistic about the chances the university and the county can bounce back from the current spike.
“Their money helped the campus community, but it also had a trickle-down effect for all of Eugene,” Mough said. “You’re not just taking care of each other, you’re taking care of the whole community.”