Many girls around the world face challenges to their health and well-being. In many places, girls are disadvantaged by discrimination rooted in cultural beliefs and ideas about gender. Learn about some of the challenges girls across the world face and how CDC is helping to improve the health and well-being of girls.
Racial and ethnic disparities exist in breastfeeding initiation. Surveillance rates based on aggregated data can challenge the understanding and monitoring of effective, culturally appropriate interventions among racial and ethnic subgroups. Aggregated data have historically estimated breastfeeding rates among a few large racial and ethnic groups. This study examines differences in breastfeeding initiation rates by disaggregation of data to finer subgroups of race and ethnicity.
In 2022, the World Health Organization reported 10.6 million new cases of tuberculosis (TB) globally. One third of these new cases were reported in women; however, pregnancy status was not included in these data. CDC recently added pregnancy status to national TB reporting in the United States. This report describes a case of fatal neonatal TB after successful in vitro fertilization in 2021.
Pregnant, postpartum, and lactating people, and infants have unique needs during public health emergencies, including nuclear and radiological incidents. This report provides information on the CDC Division of Reproductive Health's emergency preparedness and response activities to address the needs of women of reproductive age (aged 15–49 years), people who are pregnant, postpartum, or lactating, and infants during a radiation emergency.
Marijuana is the most commonly used federally illicit substance among reproductive-age women in the United States. This study uses data from the 2013–2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health to report weighted prevalence estimates of marijuana use in the past month, past 2–12 months, and past year among women aged 18–44 years with self-reported pregnancy status.
Death from tuberculosis or HIV among people from racial and ethnic minority groups who are aged <65 years is a public health concern. This study describes age-adjusted, absolute, and relative death rates from HIV or tuberculosis from 2011 through 2020 by sex, race, and ethnicity among US residents. The study uses mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention online data system on deaths from multiple causes from 2011 through 2020.
Transgender persons are disproportionately affected by HIV, but preexposure prophylaxis use has been low in this population. Clinical encounters for gender-affirming hormone therapy provide opportunities for HIV prevention. This study uses a retrospective analysis of secondary data to estimate the number of commercially insured transgender women and transgender men in the United States and their use of HIV prevention services.
Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) is a prevalent disorder known to be notoriously difficult to treat. The aim of the study is to determine intravesical instillation patterns among women receiving treatment for IC/BPS. This is a retrospective claims-based analysis using the Veterans Affairs Informatics and Computing Infrastructure.
Previous studies report an association between prenatal maternal urinary tract infections (UTI) and specific congenital heart defects (CHDs); however, the role of fever and antibiotic use on this association is poorly understood. Using data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, this study examines whether the relationship between maternal UTIs during the periconceptional period and occurrence of CHDs is modified by the presence of fever due to UTI and corresponding antibiotic use.
This study evaluates Chicas Creando Acceso a la Salud (Girls Creating Access to Health; ChiCAS), a Spanish-language, small-group intervention designed to increase preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use, consistent condom use, and medically supervised gender-affirming hormone therapy use among Spanish-speaking transgender Latinas who have sex with men.
This study is a long-term follow-up of a cohort of unmarried girls who received one, two, or three doses of quadrivalent HPV vaccine, between 10 and 18 years of age, in an Indian multi-centric study in order to compare antibody responses between the younger and older age cohorts at 10-years post-vaccination and study the impact of initiation of sexual activity and cervical HPV infections on antibody levels.
The objective of this study is to estimate the potential contributions of reported changes in frequency of penile-vaginal sex, condom use, and STI screening to changes in gonorrhea and chlamydial diagnoses from 2012 to 2019.
This study describes changes in commercial insurance claims for contraceptive services during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by analyzing commercial insurance claims using IQVIA PharMetrics Plus data from more than 9 million U.S. females aged 15–49 years, enrolled during any month, January 2019 through September 2020.
Prenatal stress and poor maternal mental health are associated with adverse offspring outcomes; however, the biological mechanisms are unknown. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive, systematic review of Epigenome-wide association studies of infant epigenetic profiles and prenatal maternal anxiety, depression, or depression treatment.
HIV incidence in eastern and southern Africa has historically been concentrated among girls and women aged 15–24 years. This study integrates population-based surveillance of 38,749 participants in the Rakai Community Cohort Study and longitudinal deep-sequence viral phylogenetics to assess how HIV incidence and population groups driving transmission have changed from 2003 to 2018 in Uganda.
