April is STI Awareness Month!

SWLA Center for Health Services recognizes Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Awareness Month and how crucial it is for people to get tested for sexually transmitted infections and maintaining overall safe sex practices.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 20 percent of the U.S. population – approximately one in five people – have an STI; totaling nearly 60 million infections in 2018.

You might think you’d know that you have a sexually transmitted infection, because you’d have some kind of sign or symptom that something was wrong. But many time, there are no symptoms at all. STI can be “silent”. That’s why the term STI is more frequently used than STD or sexually transmitted disease. You can be infected with an STI but have no symptoms of disease.

At SWLA Center for Health Services, we offer confidential and non-judgmental environments where anyone can under go STI screenings. Our Primary Care Providers and Women’s Health Providers play a vital role in STI care, offering testing treatment, counseling and prevention strategies, including promoting safer sex practices and ensuring patients receive necessary follow-up care.