Open AccessGonorrhea Prevalence Among Young Women and Men Entering the National Job Training Program, 2000–2017
Author(s) -
E Learner,
Kristen Kreisel,
Robert D. Kirkcaldy,
Karen Schlanger,
Elizabeth Torrone
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
american journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.284
H-Index - 264
eISSN - 1541-0048
pISSN - 0090-0036
DOI - 10.2105/ajph.2019.305559
Subject(s) - gonorrhea , medicine , demography , logistic regression , population , cross sectional study , gerontology , environmental health , family medicine , pathology , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , sociology
Objectives. To examine long-term gonorrhea prevalence trends from a sentinel surveillance population of young people at elevated risk for gonorrhea. Methods. We analyzed annual cross-sectional urogenital gonorrhea screening data from 191 991 women (2000-2017) and 224 348 men (2003-2017) 16 to 24 years of age entering the National Job Training Program, a US vocational training program. We estimated prevalence among women using an expectation-maximization algorithm incorporated into a logistic regression to account for increases in screening test sensitivity; log-binomial regression was used to estimate prevalence among men. Results. The adjusted gonorrhea prevalence among women followed a U-shaped curve, falling from 2.9% to 1.6% from 2000 through 2011 before rising to 2.7% in 2017. The prevalence among men declined from 1.4% to 0.8% from 2003 through 2017. In the case of both women and men, the prevalence was highest across all study years among those who were Black or American Indian/Alaska Native and those who resided in the South or Midwest. Conclusions. Trends among National Job Training Program enrollees suggest that gonorrhea prevalence is rising among young women while remaining low and steady among young men.