Don't just hand out condoms. Show and tell your clients how to practice safer sex with these condom kits and free-to-download videos.

Find the NCC on Facebook!

The National Chlamydia Coalition is now on Facebook. To follow the NCC, simply visit our page and click the "like" button. Don't forget to share it with your friends and colleagues!

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently released a report finding that Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are improving health care enrollment efforts, increasing the participation rate for eligible children, generally up to age 19, from 82.1% to 84.8% between 2008 and 2009. Over that period, the number of eligible children without insurance declined by 340,000. The report attributes the increased rate to state and federal enrollment improvement policies. Despite these improvements, in 2009, a total of 4.3 million remained uninsured but eligible for coverage through the programs, with enrollment rates widely varying from state to state. 

New Online Sex-Ed Resource Library    

The Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University has created a new online compilation of sexuality education resources for educators. This site links school educators to various other websites that provide lesson plans, discussion guides, collections of state laws and policies in key areas of school health, school health history, statistics, training opportunities, etc.--all of which are vital resources for developing school health programs to prevent adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

According to a new Child Trends Research Brief, the increase in contraceptive use seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s has slowed in the 2000s. However, between 2002 and 2006-08 there was an increase in the percentage of young women who had used newer
hormonal or long-acting methods of contraception at least once. The use of Natural Family Planning Methods (understanding the female's monthly fertility pattern and using abstinence or another method on her most fertile days) also increased over this time period, from 11 % in 2002 to 15% in 2006-08. And over the same time frame, there was an increase in the percentage of young men who used a condom at their most recent sexual experience. Contraceptive use patterns continue to differ by age and race/ethnicity.  

Popular CDC fact sheets are now available for smart phones and other mobile devices. So far the fact sheets on chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, and syphilis, as well as the "Find an STD Testing Facility Near You" resource, are available in mobile format.