Residential racial segregation and disparities in sexually transmitted disease risk in the United States: The growing evidence

摘要

Racial disparities in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are a persistent and important public health problem in the United States. With an estimated 19 million new STDs every year, blacks, especially adolescents, bear a disproportionate burden. For example, among 15- to 19-year-olds, rates of gonorrhea are more than 20 times higher for blacks compared with whites. Although many STDs are treatable, if left undiagnosed or untreated, they can have serious sequelae including the facilitation of HIV transmission, infertility, organ damage, cancer, and adverse outcomes for babies born to mothers with a prevalent infection. Moreover, STDs cost an estimated US$17 billion to the US health care system annually. It is imperative that we understand the causes of these truly astonishing disparities to eliminate them.