* Minority populations have higher rates of reported gonorrhea and syphilis than whites. In 1993, compared with whites, African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics had gonorrhea rates that were 42, 5, and 4 times higher, respectively; African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans had syphilis rates that were 64, 13, and 5 times higher, respectively.1
* The South has consistently had higher rates of both gonorrhea and syphilis compared with other regions throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Minority populations are disproportionately located in southern states.2
* African American men have gonorrhea rates that are 68 times greater than those in white men. For women, these rates are 28 times greater in African Americans than in whites.3
* African American adolescents and young adults have STD rates that are more than 20 times higher than those in white adolescents.4
* Comprehensive chlamydia screening programs for women thus far show higher rates for minority women than for white women.5
* Non-white women are nearly three times as likely as white women to be hospitalized with acute Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) and more than two times as likely to be hospitalized with chronic PID.6
* African American women are nearly three times more likely to die of cervical cancer than white women, when data are adjusted for age.7
Opportunities:
1. Involving affected communities in prevention planning. HIV prevention community planning involves racial/ethnic minority communities in determining the HIV prevention needs of their communities. STD programs, though somewhat different from HIV programs, can learn from this HIV prevention experience to help them identify ways to involve affected communities in STD prevention efforts.
2. Syphilis concentrated in the South. Focusing research and program efforts on syphilis in the South will allow increased opportunity to better focus prevention efforts on minority populations, both in terms of preventing syphilis and congenital syphilis and in terms of indirectly reducing HIV transmission.
3. Growing understanding of need for population-tailored programs. There is a growing understanding of the importance of culturally competent and linguistically appropriate behavioral interventions for STD and HIV prevention in minority communities. The increasing involvement of community-based organizations and national minority organizations in STD and HIV prevention affords an opportunity to capitalize on that understanding.
4. Negative STD-related consequences concentrated among minorities. As minority women have higher rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and their consequences, there is an opportunity to avoid less effective generic prevention efforts and rather, to tailor prevention efforts to these populations.
http://www.ashastd.org/involve/involve_adv_minpos.cfm