The New York City Health Department’s Bureau of Epidemiology Services released worrisome data regarding New Yorkers’ sexual behavior.

The health department report, released on Tuesday, was based on a survey of about 10,000 adults in 2006.

According to the survey, some 40 percent of New Yorkers with multiple sex partners did not use a condom the last time they had sex. Also about 11 percent (610,000 adults) of them had multiple sex partners, a fact that increased their chance of contracting sexually transmitted infections.

Men were three times more likely than women to report multiple partners, 17 percent versus 6 percent. Also, young adults were four times more likely than older adults to report multiple partners.

The situation is not looking good in the case of New Yorkers with same-sex partners either. They were three times more likely to report more than one partner in the past year compared with those with opposite-sex partners (33 percent versus 13 percent).

Not even adults involved in marriages or steady relationships behaved in 2006, as five percent of them reported two or more partners in the past year.

The practice of unsafe sex led to more than 60,000 cases of sexually transmitted infections in 2006, including 3,745 new HIV diagnoses. Also, more than half of all New York pregnancies were unplanned.

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York’s health commissioner released a statement urging New Yorkers to reduce the number of sexual partners and use condoms “correctly” and “consistently” in order to stay away from a sexually transmitted infection such as HIV.

The survey’s results are particularly disturbing in a city promoting its own condom. Moreover, the city is considered the epicenter of the country’s AIDS crisis and where the number of herpes cases is above the national average.

According to a study by the Department of Health released earlier this month, one in four adult New Yorkers is infected with Herpes Simplex Virus-2, meaning approximately 26 percent. The national average of people infected with the virus is 19 percent.

The Herpes Simplex Virus-2 causes genital herpes. The situation is getting even worse, as the condition facilitates the spread of HIV and there is also the possibility, although rarely encountered, that the virus is transmitted to newborns. Genital herpes could actually double a person’s risk for contracting HIV.