HIV Services Provided by STD Programs in State and Local Health Departments — United States, 2013–2014

Abstract

What is already known about this topic? STD programs in health departments often provide both STD services and HIV-specific services, including partner services such as interviewing and testing sex partners. What is added by this report? Findings from this report show that STD programs often provide integral HIV specific services including HIV field testing for STD contacts and linking those found to be HIV-positive to care. This report also illustrates that state health departments often perform visits to HIV providers to provide STD information or public health updates as well as perform epidemiologic activities, including matching STD cases report data with HIV data to analyze interactions between the diseases or overlaps. What are the implications for public health practices? STD programs can play an essential role in reducing HIV transmission among patients with STD diagnoses. Front line interaction with STD patients and contacts at high risk for HIV provides opportunities for quicker HIV testing and linkage to care. STD programs might also gain important insights in STD and HIV epidemiology as well as possible interactions between the diseases by matching and analyzing STD case report and HIV data, to the extent such data sharing is possible. © 2017, Department of Health and Human Services. All rights reserved.