GENEVA -- GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization's office for Europe on Thursday decried a decline in condom use by adolescents in recent years, warning of risks of infection and unplanned pregnancies in countries from Canada to central Asia.

These findings are presented in the latest WHO Europe report on the health behaviors of school-aged children. The data was collected from surveys conducted between 2014 and 2022, encompassing nearly 250,000 fifteen-year-olds across 42 countries.

“While the results showed significant variation across countries and regions, a prominent trend since the 2014 health behavior in school-age children survey is a decrease in condom use among sexually active fifteen-year-olds in certain countries and regions," stated Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO Europe regional director, in an introduction to the report.

He described the results, which also investigated the use of birth control pills, as “disheartening” yet “not unexpected,” considering the lack of comprehensive sexuality education in many nations. WHO and the report authors urged policymakers to prioritize improving this area.

In the countries where “age-appropriate" sexuality education is offered, “it has increasingly faced opposition in recent years based on the false claim that it encourages sexual behavior,” Kluge added.

Among the sexually active teenagers surveyed, the percentage of boys who said they had used a condom during their last sexual intercourse dropped to 61% in 2022, from 70% in 2014. Among female respondents, the figure dropped to 57% from 63% over the same period.

Overall, the proportion of teenagers reporting having sexual intercourse has remained “relatively stable” since 2014 — with approximately one in five fifteen-year-old boys and 15% of girls of the same age reporting engaging in sexual activity. The figure for boys has slightly decreased since 2018, when one in four reported having had sexual intercourse.

Among other key findings, teenagers from lower-income households, or those with “low affluence,” were more likely to report not using a condom — one in three compared to one in four among teens from wealthier backgrounds, according to WHO Europe, based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Condom usage was least common in Albania (24%) among girls and most common in Serbia (81%), according to the report. Among boys, the lowest rate of usage was in Sweden (43%), while the highest rate was found in Switzerland (77%).