American Social Health Association

American Sexual Health Association

Operates in the US
Abbreviation	ASHA
Formation	1914
Type	NGO
Purpose	Information and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDS)
Region served	United States
Website	[1]

The American Sexual Health Association (ASHA) is an American non-profit organization established in 1914, that cites a mission to improve the health of individuals, families, and communities, with an emphasis on sexual health, as well as a focus on preventing sexually transmitted infections and their harmful consequences. ASHA uses tools such as education, communication, advocacy and policy analysis activities with the intent to heighten public, patient, provider, policymaker and media awareness of STI prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment strategies.

ASHA was born out of the early 20th century social hygiene movement. At the beginning of the twentieth century venereal disease (VD), or what we now call sexually transmitted diseases or infections (STDs/STIs), was a prevalent concern for social health organizations. Sexuality was not an acceptable topic for polite conversation in Victorian society, and VD largely remained behind a veil of shame. At the same time, however, reports of rising incidence rates for syphilis and gonorrhoea gave cause for serious concern. For example, by one perhaps inflated but widely accepted estimate in 1901, as many as 80 percent of all men in New York City had a gonorrhoea infection at one time or another. Early efforts to eradicate "social diseases" focused on prostitution on one hand, as both a threat to the family as a source of infection, and the threat to public health on the other, with the focus on addressing the problem through both medical and educational means.

In 1913, at a conference in Buffalo, New York, several organizations dedicated to fighting prostitution and venereal disease joined together to form the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA). The association was established to stop the venereal disease epidemic through public education on STIs and working to break down the social stigma attached to VD. In 1914, ASHA established its national headquarters in New York City. Founders and supporters included Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University; Jane Addams of Chicago's Hull House; Edward Keyes, Jr., M.D.; Dr. Thomas N. Hepburn, leader of the Connecticut social hygiene movement; Grace Dodge, philanthropist; John D. Rockefeller, Jr., initial financial contributor; and Dr. William Freeman Snow, Stanford University professor and secretary of the California State Board of Health.