Almost a quarter of sexually active young people are engaging in unprotected sex in Jersey, according to a new sexual health report – which also revealed that gonorrhoea rates in the island have been steadily climbing.
The Sexual Health Profile 2024, published by Public Health Jersey this week, revealed that the proportion of sexually active young people who say they are having unprotected sex has jumped from 15% in 2018 to 23% in 2024.
However, there has also been a marked rise in condom use among sexually active young islanders – from 49% in 2021 to 62% in 2024. A third (34%) of sexually active youngsters use the contraceptive pill.
Brook Jersey is the most common place young people obtain contraception, with over 58% of them using the sexual health service.
The number of teenagers getting pregnant in Jersey remains lower than in England.
The Sexual Health Profile 2024 also showed that gonorrhoea rates in the island have been steadily climbing, rising from 36 per 100,000 people in 2016-2018 to 55 per 100,000 in 2022-2024 – an increase of over 50% in eight years.
Meanwhile, rates of genital warts and genital herpes were higher in Jersey than in England during 2019-2021.
However, most infection rates in Jersey remain similar to or lower than those in England.
The report also revealed that local statistics about sexually transmitted infections cannot always be fully trusted.
It warned that data on genital warts, genital herpes and syphilis was only held on paper records rather than in digital systems due to it being “highly sensitive and confidential”.
“This means that manual counting must be applied when determining these sexually transmitted infection statistics in Jersey and is not always readily available for the latest figures,” the report said.
Statistics for chlamydia and gonorrhoea also have “limitations”, according to the report, which explained that numbers include reinfections and “may have some double-counting”.
Public Health Jersey officials also warned of a lack of demographic detail, such as age and ethnicity.
However, the sexual health clinic is in the process of improving systems and digitising data in a “protected” and “safe” manner.
The report states: “This system helps improve reporting data efficiently and in future will report on demographic data such as ethnicity, gender and age groups.
“The system will also be able to download the data confidentially. This new system will provide a more intelligent way of reporting.”