At least one in four teenage girls ages 14 to 19 in the U.S. have an STD. However, according to Mary Bengston, medical director of Student Health Services, the statistical increases are not likely enough to support that STDs are a rising problem at N.C. State.

Bengston said that prevention, education, diagnosis and treatment of STDs have been, and continue to be, important reasons students visit Student Health Services.

“When looking at the statistics, it is not just the number of people who have the disease that is important,” Bengtson said. “The total number of people who got tested is an important number as well because that means there are that many people who had a reason to get tested.”

According to Bengtson, Chlamydia, HPV and herpes are the most common STDs seen at the Student Health Center. Bengston said that although overall percentages of students with STDs are low, there were just under 5,000 tests conducted last year for Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Syphilis and HIV.

She also said that only 310 women have recieved the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, through Student Health Services since it debuted in 2006. Statistics for students who received the vaccine elsewhere are not available, according to Bengtson.

Marianne Turnbull, director of health promotion at the Student Health Center, said there are several ways to lower the rates of STDs on campus including encouraging students not to have multiple partners, to watch the level of drinking when they go out, stress the use of condoms and encourage students to get tested to know their status and prevent transmitting STDs.

“The sex education that is most beneficial to young women is anything straightforward because it hits people in all different lifestyles,” Turnbull said. “Abstinence-only [education] does not serve those who are not abstinent, and women especially should know that they are at high risk with the rise of HPV and need to learn that condoms are not 100 percent effective, especially with HPV.”

Bryan Ahrens, freshman in First Year College, said in his Charlotte high school, students were taught to have protected sex and limit partners. He said this is a better message than abstinence because it is more realistic.

“Students are not going to stop having sex so it’s better to educate them and make it safer rather than try to make them stop,” Ahrens said. “The [Student] Health Center is a good resource to get tested and I have friends who have gone there for testing.”

Of all the people that Student Health Services tested last year, less than 5 percent had Chlamydia, less than 1 percent had gonorrhea and no one tested had syphilis, according to Bengtson.