Background:
West Virginia's chlamydia cases have steadily increased each year since 2001 (2001 每 2,273 cases; 2004 每 2,744 cases): however low positivity was consistently found in the women age 問30 population. To better utilize limited resources, WV (Sexually Transmitted Disease Program, Family Planning Program [FPP] and Office of Laboratory Services [OLS]) began to enforce the State's Chlamydia Screening Protocols within FPP clinics. In order to focus on more at-risk populations, routine specimens from women age 問30 were rejected.

Objective:
To reduce the number of women age 問30 routinely screened for chlamydia in FPP sites to less than 5% of all tests by November 30, 2004.

Method:
A letter was sent to FPP sites informing them that chlamydia specimens for routine screenings on female clients age 問30 would be rejected if the client exceeded the age criteria. When a specimen was rejected due to non-compliance to the age criteria, the OLS returned the laboratory slip with a letter stating the reason for rejection to providers. Providers with a large number of rejected specimens were contacted by FPP representatives and screening criteria were reviewed.

Result:
From November 1, 2002 每 October 31, 2003, 4,809 tests out of 37,545 were administered to women age 問30 resulting in 0.44% positivity. In looking at the data after one year of project implementation, 1,521 out of 33,398 tests were administered to women age 問30 resulting in 1.12% positivity.

Conclusion:
By enforcing the screening criteria, WV reduced the number of tests performed on women age 問30 by 8.25%, allowing our limited resources to be redirected towards the high risk individuals. Due to this effort, screening in women age 問30 decreased from 12.81% in 2003 to 4.55% in 2004.

Implications:
By analyzing disease data and enforcing existing screening criteria, WV can better target their limited resources to populations most at-risk for chlamydia infection.