Chlamydia, gonorrhea are hitting teens hard. Pa. has made it easier to reduce harm.

Today’s teenagers are dealing with a lot. A mental health crisis, gun violence, curfews — you name it.

Add to that long list high rates of sexually transmitted infections.

In 2021, more than 40,000 cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea were reported among Pennsylvania adolescents and young adults (less than 24 years old). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half of all new infections (26 million in 2018 alone) occur in people aged 15-24.

Sexually transmitted infections can have serious consequences for young people — and, in some cases, could alter the course of their lives.

Many infections don’t cause noticeable symptoms, which may lead teens and their partners to forgo treatment — which can cause severe complications, including long-term pain and infertility.

» READ MORE: One way to lower STI rates in Pennsylvania: expedited partner therapy | Opinion

In our clinical work in pediatric emergency medicine and adolescent medicine, we routinely see the negative effects of sexually transmitted infections on teens’ health. For one, there’s the stigma of having a sexually transmitted infection, which can harm mental health. In our experience, these diagnoses can hit young people particularly hard, given the risk to their future fertility, and the impact on their relationships and identity during this key phase of their lives.

Imagine being in your first relationship, with all the overwhelming feelings and insecurities it can raise, and learning you have a sexually transmitted infection. Then imagine getting diagnosed again just weeks or months later because your partner couldn’t get treated.

Unfortunately, this is a scenario we have seen time and time again, due to the lack of adequate sexual education and health-care services for teenagers, who face many barriers and confidentiality concerns in seeking much-needed care.

Thankfully, a new law in Pennsylvania could make life a lot easier for young people.

Recently, it has become explicitly legal in the state to offer expedited partner therapy, in which someone newly diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection can ask a doctor for a prescription to treat the infection for their sex partner. The law even allows the doctor to fill it out for “EPT,” so they don’t need the patient’s name. This change in law can dramatically reduce the risk of reinfection for chlamydia and gonorrhea, which could have a major impact on public health.

It is critical that we ensure adolescents, medical providers, and leaders of health-care systems are aware of this important practice, which is now fully supported in Pennsylvania. It is also vital that teens be made aware of the new law — known as the Expedited Partner Therapy Act — so that they are empowered to ask their provider about it when being treated themselves.

It is vital that teens be made aware of the new law.

But there’s even more to be done to maximize the effectiveness of this new law. For example, the Pennsylvania Department of Health and State Board of Pharmacy should issue public statements to clarify their support, and health-care providers and systems can establish clear treatment guidelines to support the use of expedited partner therapy. One of the most significant barriers to EPT is funding to pay for a partner’s treatment, for which public money should be made available.

Pennsylvania has made it legal to use expedited partner therapy, but that is just one step in improving access to this essential health service that can positively affect the health of adolescents. There is still more work to be done to reduce the rate of sexually transmitted infections among youth in Pennsylvania. This will require all hands on deck to develop a collaborative approach. We look forward to working with our partners to ensure the new legislation has the most impact for our patients.

Cynthia J. Mollen, Sarah M. Wood, and Erin F. Flynn are pediatricians at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).