ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in teens and younger adults. Possible reasons for the incidence of STDs in older adults could be that the increase in divorce and separation rates have affected their sexual behaviour, lack of safe sex awareness and reluctance to seek help and advice. The sex life of older adults has long been ignored and poorly researched and is only really getting attention in light of the current staggering statistics that STDs, in line with divorce and separation rates in the United Kingdom and United States, have doubled in the last decade. Sexual healthcare policy, health education, and healthcare communities need to be improved to include older adult sexual health behaviour to the same level as they address sexual health needs of adolescents. However, in recent years there has been a change in policymakers' wishes to understand the sexual needs of older people, as demonstrated by the UK NATSAL studies.
