Health Department MySpace page an innovative approach
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:30 AM PST
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E-mail this articleThe Cowlitz County Health Department has been carrying out an aggressive campaign against the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in this area for several years now. And it's produced some progress of late. In 2007, the county's gonorrhea infection rate was down 38 percent from the previous year.
Health officials have turned to the Internet in hopes of building on this progress. Daily News health writer Barbara LaBoe reported Monday that the department has launched its own MySpace page to a younger, audience. in the county.
The Web page -- www.myspace.com/sexincowlitz -- will allow county health officials to help educate teens and young adults about STDs and safe sex. It also will provide young people an opportunity to question health professionals while remaining anonymous.
It's a smart innovative initiative on the part of the health department. SexinCowlitz quite literally brings the department's message home to an increasingly at-risk population -- "home" being the MySpace site where so many of these young people live.
People age 13 to 19 accounted for 20 percent of the county's 2007 gonorrhea cases, according to LaBoe. Young adults age 20 to 24 accounted for another 31 percent of gonorrhea cases last year. Very obviously, this teen-young adult population is an important target group in any effort to combat the county's appallingly high STD rates.
Last year was the third consecutive year that Cowlitz County has recorded the state's highest gonorrhea infection rate. The county's 2007 infection rate was 138 per 100,000 population. The second-place finisher for this dubious distinction was not even close. It was Pierce County, with a gonorrhea rate of 51 per 100,000 population.
Cowlitz County, as the high gonorrhea rate would suggest, also has recorded high numbers of Chlamydia and herpes cases over the past several years. Educating young people as to the risk of becoming infected with STDs and how to protect against it is of critical importance in this county -- more so, perhaps, than in most of counties in the state. We applaud county health officials for their latest, innovative approach to this task. It would seem to hold considerable promise.
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