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. 2019 Sep 4;14(9):e0221303.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221303. eCollection 2019.

Association between pubic hair grooming and prevalent sexually transmitted infection among female university students

Jamie Luster  1 , Abigail Norris Turner  2 , John P Henry Jr  3 , Maria F Gallo  1
Affiliations

Association between pubic hair grooming and prevalent sexually transmitted infection among female university students

Jamie Luster et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Recent findings have suggested an association between pubic hair grooming and self-reported history of sexually transmitted infection (STI), specifically gonococcal infection (GC), chlamydial infection (CT), or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). We evaluated the association between self-reported extreme grooming and laboratory-confirmed prevalence of GC/CT. Between April 2017 and April 2018, we enrolled English-speaking, adult, female students at a large, Midwestern university who presented on-campus for STI testing. Participants completed a questionnaire on demographics and sexual and grooming behaviors, which was linked to their GC/CT test results based on nucleic acid amplification testing. We defined extreme grooming as removal of all pubic hair either at least weekly in the past 12 months or ≥6 times in the past 30 days. We used two separate logistic regression models to determine whether odds of GC/CT varied by extreme groomer status for either time interval. In the study sample of 214 women, prevalence of GC/CT was 9.8%. Nearly all participants (98.1%) reported ever grooming; 53.6% were extreme groomers in the past year and 18% in the past month. Extreme grooming was not associated with prevalent GC/CT in the past year (odds ratio [OR] = 0.8; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.3-1.9; adjusted OR = 0.7; 95% CI: 0.3-2.0) or in the past month (OR = 0.5; 95% CI: 0.1-2.0; aOR = 0.4; 95% CI: 0.1-1.9). Pubic hair grooming was common among female university students attending for STI testing. Findings do not support pubic hair grooming as an STI risk factor in this population.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Directed acyclic graph.
The minimally sufficient adjustment set includes the variables frequency of sex, income, race, and year in school.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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