A widely reported study found that more than one-quarter of 14-19 year old females had a sexually transmitted infection. Curiously, almost one in eight of the survey participants who did not report ever having had sex were found to have had a sexually transmitted infection. This suggests that some survey participants underreported their sexual activity.

A working paper by Dr. Eric Fruits uses the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections to estimate the incidence of sexual activity among survey participants. In contrast to the self reported incidence of sex, Dr. Fruits finds that almost two-thirds of survey participants engaged in some form of sexual activity. In other words, approximately one in four survey participants who did not report any sexual experience are likely underreporting their activities.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 11:25 am and is filed under Health Care, Statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.