A large number of sexually active teens never get tested for HIV. Less than one-quarter of sexually active high school students and only one-third of sexually active young adults get tested for HIV, according to a research released by AAP Publications.
About 10,000 teens and young adults are diagnosed with HIV every year. Despite the low number, testing is essential since 44 percent of adolescents with HIV remain undiagnosed, the highest percentage of any age group,
"Teens are in a particularly important period of their lives for HIV testing and prevention," said Michelle Van Handel, a health scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Getting tested early would mean getting young adults ready for a life of safe sex and disease prevention habits.
Published in the journal Pediatrics, the report asked high school students and young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 a variety of questions involving HIV testing. One of the questions was: "Have you ever been tested for HIV? (Without counting tests you have done as part of a blood donation).
Teens do not get tested for HIV due to worries about privacy, according to the Huffington Post. Van Handel explains that young adults do not feel comfortable having an HIV test show up on their parents' health insurance bill.
Generally, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are a problem among many teens and young adults, which is why doctors advise yearly screening. Testing is especially important to high-risk patients such as those with multiple sex partners, gay, bisexual men and people who use injection drugs.
Unfortunately, doctors are also not talking to their young patients about the need to maintain sexual health during primary care visits, Only 43 percent of females and 26 percent of males said that they discussed sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and pregnancy during their primary case visit, according to a study published in Pediatrics in 2003.
"Adolescents are more likely to get tested if their physician recommends it," Van Handel said. It is the doctors' responsibility to make it clear that testing for HIV is a normal part of life.
In December 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that all young people under the age of 21 should be regularly tested for HIV infection. The academy also recommended tests for depression and high cholesterol.
