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STI warning for young travellers

08/11/2007

One in five young Britons has sex with someone new while abroad, UK scientists have revealed.

According to analysis of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) by University College London researchers, 23 per cent of men and 17 per cent of women aged between 16 and 24 have had new sexual partners while on holiday.

The report's authors are calling on healthcare professionals at GP surgeries and travel and health clinics to do more to promote the message of safer sex to overseas travellers.

Published in Sexually Transmitted Infections, a specialist publication from the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the research says that Britons are more likely to have sex with someone from the UK or Europe while on holiday.

While respondents said this reduced the risk of HIV infection they appeared "unaware" of the likelihood of contracting other sexually transmitted diseases.

Natsal, which involved interviews with 12,000 men and women aged between 16 and 24 in 2000, said that one in ten of all men's sexual partnerships involved someone new overseas, and one in 20 of women's.

"Our data from a national probability survey show that a substantial minority proportion of the sexually active, resident British population have new sexual partners while overseas, with twice as many men as women reporting doing so, and with men reporting a greater number of partners than women," the researchers write.

"In addition to gender, partner acquisition overseas is associated with a range of socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics. Of particular note is the large proportion of never married young people who acquire new partners while overseas, as others have note."