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Background: Assessment of racial disparity temporal trends in chlamydia infections is useful for evaluating intervention efforts and for program planning.
Objectives: Determine temporal trends of racial disparity in chl
Methods: All black and white NJTP participants aged 16-24 years and tested for chlamydia by strand displacement amplification technology during 2006-2008 for women and 2004-2008 for men were selected. Race-specific prevalence rates were adjusted (direct standardization) by age, specimen type (women only), and region. Racial disparity was defined as the arithmetic difference between the adjusted prevalence of blacks and whites. Regression with autoregressive moving average errors or linear regression was employed to test temporal trends.
Results: Test data from 46849 women and 136892 men were analyzed. Racial disparity in chlamydia prevalence significantly decreased for women (by an average of -0.122 percentage points per two-month interval; 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.233%, -0.010%; p<0.05); but not for men (-0.01%; 95% CI: -0.045%, +0.026%; p=0.57). Chlamydia prevalence significantly declined among black women (by an average of -0.139 percentage points per two-month interval; 95%CI: -0.243%,-0.035%; p<0.05) and men (-0.045%; 95%CI: -0.071%, -0.020%; p<0.05). In 2008, the adjusted racial disparity in chlamydia prevalence was 7.9 %( 95%CI: 6.9%, 8.9%) for women and 8.6% (95%CI: 8.0%, 9.2%) for men.
Conclusions: The racial disparity in chlamydia prevalence for socioeconomically- disadvantaged young women declined significantly from 2006-2008, but not among men from 2004-2008. Racial disparity in chlamydia infections remained high among both sexes.
Implications for Programs, Policy, and/or Research: Prevention efforts should continue to focus on reductions of racial disparities and track changes over time. Further investigation is needed to determine why racial disparity declines were not seen among men.