The STI Epidemic
4
The Institute of Medicine characterizes STIs as the hidden epidemics of tremendous health and economic consequences in the US. Their hidden nature makes it challenging to identify exactly how many cases there are. There are also sociocultural taboos related to sexuality that act as barriers to STI prevention, screening, and treatment. STIs are asymptomatic infections meaning that they usual do not show symptoms. Because of this, infections are often undiagnosed because there are no early symptoms. When symptoms are present, they are mild and often ignored and left untreated. However, they can be diagnosed through testing, but routine screening is not widespread and reporting regulations vary or are nonexistent or inconsistent. This leads to the underreporting of various STIs. For example, gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, and hepatitis A and B must be reported by healthcare providers to health departments in each state and to the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. However, no reporting is required for major STIs like genital herpes, human papilloma virus, and trichomoniasis. In addition, some private physicians don't report STI cases to their state health departments. This inconsistency does not enable us to have a reasonable idea of what the STI epidemic is like in the US.
Image: McGraw Hill