April is Sexually Transmitted Awareness Month

June 29, 2026:

April is Sexually Transmitted Awareness Month

You might think you’d know that you have an STI, because you’d have some kind of sign or symptom that something was wrong. That’s true sometimes—STIs can cause symptoms like itching or burning or sores or discharge. But many times, probably much more often than you think, there are no symptoms at all. STIs 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.

That’s where testing comes in. The only reliable way to know if you have an STI is to get tested.

But what tests do you need? And how often should you be tested? There are some general guidelines—for example, the CDC recommends that all sexually active people assigned female at birth ages 15-24 should be tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia every year. These infections are common among this population, and untreated gonorrhea and chlamydia infections can cause serious health complications like infertility (the inability to conceive or carry a pregnancy).

Testing can be simple, like a urine sample or swab test. You can get tested at your provider’s office, an STI clinic, or even some pharmacy and retail locations. There are also options to test at home—some that allow you to test and get results shortly after, and others where you collect your own sample and mail that in to a laboratory.

Our downloadable fact sheet helps explain the variety of different STI testing options, including home testing, self-collection, point-of-care testing, and testing with a health care provider.

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