63% of 12th graders in the United States report having had sexual intercourse

In 2011, about 47 percent of high school students reported ever having had sexual intercourse. The proportion of students who reported ever having had sexual intercourse declined significantly from 1991 (54 percent) to 2001 (46 percent) and remained relatively stable from 2001 to 2011.

The percentage of students who reported ever having had sexual intercourse differed by grade. In 2011, about 33 percent of 9th-grade students reported ever having had sexual intercourse, compared with 44 percent of 10th-grade students, 53 percent of 11th-grade students, and 63 percent of 12th-grade students.

 Overall, the rates of sexual intercourse were higher among males (49 percent) than females (46 percent), and also differed by gender within some racial and ethnic groups.

In 2011, approximately 67 percent of Black, non-Hispanic male students reported ever having had sexual intercourse, compared with 54 percent of Black, non-Hispanic female students;

53 percent of Hispanic male students reported ever having had sexual intercourse, compared with 44 percent of Hispanic female students.

 In 2011, about 18 percent of students who had sexual intercourse in the past 3 months reported that they or their partner had used birth control pills before their last sexual intercourse, and 60 percent reported condom use. Condom use increased from 46 percent in 1991 to 63 percent in 2003, then remained relatively stable through 2011.

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Brockporter Health Care Sunday - Quit smoking and add years to your life.

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Brockporter health care Sunday - E-cigarette use more than doubles among U.S. middle and high school students from 2011-2012

Press release from the Center For Disease Control on 09/05/13:

The percentage of U.S. middle and high school students who use electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The findings from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, show that the percentage of high school students who reported ever using an e-cigarette rose from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10.0 percent in 2012. In the same time period, high school students using e-cigarettes within the past 30 days rose from 1.5 percent to 2.8 percent.  Use also doubled among middle school students.  Altogether, in 2012 more than 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide had tried e-cigarettes. More than 75 percent of youth users smoke conventional cigarettes too.

Editor's note:

Whether this increased in school age kids using e-cigarettes is good or bad is hard to tell. E-cigarettes can be a form of nicotine replacement for kids trying to quit cigarettes in which case the use of e-cigarettes is a good think for tobacco cessation. On the other hand, if non smoking kids are using e-cigarettes for the nicotine (which I doubt) and they graduate to tobacco, then the use of e-cigarettes is a bad thing. Here in Brockport e-cigarettes are readily available in specialty stores, the drug stores, and Walmart. I do believe you have to be 18 though to purchase them as you do any tobacco products. How strictly the sale of cigarettes is enforced is questionable.

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The Brockporter Health Care Sunday - Homicide and Suicide Rates For Whites and Blacks

From the CDC (Center for Disease Control) MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) for April 5, 2013:

Click on image to enlarge for easier reading. 

From 1999 to 2010, annual age-adjusted homicide death rates for blacks were at least four times the rates for whites.

In contrast, suicide rates for whites were twice as high as the rates for blacks.

From 1999 to 2010, homicide death rates decreased 13.2% among whites, from 3.8 deaths per 100,000 population to 3.3, and suicide rates increased 20.4%, from 11.3 deaths per 100,000 population to 13.6.

Among blacks, homicide death rates increased 7.0%, from 20.1 deaths per 100,000 population in 1999 to 21.5 in 2006, then decreased 17.7%, from 21.5 deaths per 100,000 population in 2006 to 17.7 in 2010.

Suicide rates decreased 7.1% among blacks, from 5.6 deaths per 100,000 population in 1999 to 5.2 in 2010.

Source: National Vital Statistics System. Mortality public use data files, 1999–2010. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm.

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Brockporter Health Care Sunday - Generic drug prices vary widely according to Consumer reports

Same generic drug, many prices -We found big price differences at drug stores on the generic versions of Lipitor, Plavix, and other common drugs.

Consumer Reports magazine: May 2013 

 

Click on image to enlarge for easier reading.

 

 

 

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The Brockporter Thought For The Day - Another side of the story about Lakeside

In response to your article about breast pumps - I can't believe you are holding a 40 year-old grudge.

I will take at least partial credit for the fact that ~ 25 years ago Lakeside became a nationally recognized "Baby Friendly" hospital for promoting breast feeding.  While I was the first at Lakeside to do deliveries in the labor room, long before the renovations of the OB suite did away with the OR-based delivery rooms, most babies were delivered in bed rather than on a sterile table up in stirrups.

Over the years, I was joined by other Family Physicians and a number of midwives who, along with increasingly modern Obstetricians, practiced humane, family-centered obstetrics.  The Lakeside OB unit won a national award for quality.  I am extremely proud of the professional nurses who supported me and the laboring patients.

I am sure I could get a couple-hundred testimonials to the loving way my patients were treated as they delivered at Lakeside over the last 30 years.

It is attitudes like yours -- refusing to acknowledge growth, change, and improvement -- that have led to the slow destruction of a noble and worth-while community institution.

David M. Newman, MD

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The Brockporter Health Care Sunday - When drinking energy drinks leads to the emergency room

From The Week 02/08/13:

The number of people admitted to emergency rooms after drinking energy drinks has skyrocketed in recent years. A new federal report shows that in 2011, more than 20,000 people were admitted to the ER with anxiety, rapid heartbeat, seizures, or heart attacks seemingly caused by downing the drinks—more than twice the number from four years earlier. The Federal Drug Administration is also investigating 18 deaths possibly tied to the highly caffeinated beverages. Most patients who seek help after consuming the drinks—which include Monster, Red Bull, and Rockstar—are children and teens.

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Brockporter Health Care Sunday - Stop smoking and extend your life

From The Week, 02/15/13:

Everyone knows smoking can shorten your life—but a new study spells it out in years. Lifelong smokers die an average of 10 years younger than nonsmokers do, say researchers who analyzed data on 220,000 American men and women over decades. But the study found good news, too: Smokers who manage to quit by age 35 can add that decade back onto their life expectancy. Even kicking the habit before age 60 is good for as many as six more years of life.

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The Brockporter Health Care Sunday - 2/3rds of gun deaths in United States are from suicide

From The Psychiatric News: 02/14/13

Most Gun Deaths Are Suicides

Since the schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn., much of the nation’s attention has focused on mass shootings. But deaths involving guns are very likely to involve one victim—the shooter.

A report in the New York Times today, drawing on statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, notes that nearly 20,000 of the 30,000 deaths from guns in the United States in 2010 were suicides.

Experts quoted by the Times emphasize that guns are particularly lethal. And it cites statistics from the Harvard Injury Control Research Center showing that suicidal acts with guns are fatal in 85 percent of cases, while those with pills are fatal in just 2 percent of cases.

“Suicidal acts are often prompted by a temporary surge of rage or despair, and most people who attempt them do not die,” according to the report. “In a 2001 study of 13- to 34-year-olds in Houston who had attempted suicide but were saved by medical intervention, researchers from the CDC found that, for more than two-thirds of them, the time that elapsed between deciding to act and taking action was an hour or less. The key to reducing fatalities, experts say, is to block access to lethal means when the suicidal feeling spikes.”

The Times article is here. For more on the subject of suicide see Psychiatric News here.

Editor's note: In my career of 45 years as a Psychiatric Social Worker I have performed over 15,000 suicide evaluations. By far the most common and lethal form of suicide attempt is with a gun. Keeping guns in one's home is a needless risk that far outweighs the benefit of protection from an intruder. Gun advocates appeal to their audience based on emotion and rarely do they argue from the public health data which clearly leads to the conclusion that the risks of gun ownership clearly outweigh any benefit. Suicide by gun happens in the Brockport area. I know of several.

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The Brockporter Health Care Sunday - Final HIPPA rule released by HHS

On January 17, 2013, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the final omnibus rule enhancing the privacy and security protections provided for health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

Specifically, the changes strengthen the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Breach Notification requirements.

The new enhancements also expand patients’ rights by entitling them to an electronic copy of their medical records and by prohibiting the sale of an individual’s health information without his or her permission.

Also under the new rule, when individuals pay by cash they can instruct their provider not to share information about their treatment with their health plan.

Read the HHS press release regarding the final rule.

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Abortions down 5% in the U.S.

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) announced on Wednesday, 12/19, 2012 that the number of abortions are going down based on the data for the last year accounted for, 2009.

The CDC has estimated there were about 1 million abortions every year in the United States until 2009 when the number dropped to about 785,000. The rate dropped from 16/1,000 in 2008 to 15/1,000 in 2009. That's about 215,000 fewer abortions.

The reasons for the drop seems to have little to do with increased restrictions on abortions in some states but rather the recession and the fact that women and their partners have increasingly easier access to, and are using, birth control.

In a society where women have a right to choose and they have control over their own reproductive health, women act in responsible ways and the data seems to bare this observation out. Policies which restrict women's right to choose and to have access to birth control are misguided and are not supported by public health data. There are people in Brockport who recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every person, justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process and a community with peace, liberty, justice and hope for all.

Women being treated with respect and compassion benefit by supportive social policies rather than have the State determine for them what is in their best interests.

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