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Background: Understanding the current state of the research in a given field is imperative to identify critical gaps and inform a research agenda. Systematic reviews and published research/reports are useful but may not reflect current or ongoing research. To complement other data sources, we describe the state of STD prevention research using the content of scientific conference abstracts.
Methods: We reviewed abstracts submitted to the 2014 STD Prevention Conference. We used qualitative data analysis techniques, developing domains and inductively created codes within domains, to characterize abstracts in terms of their substantive content, the methodology and data used, and various other features. Using abstracts as the unit of analysis, we describe frequencies of the codes applied in table format and word clouds.
Results: A total of 594 abstracts were submitted to the 2014 STD Prevention conference. Abstracts reported on common STDs, such as syphilis (17%), chlamydia (19%), gonorrhea (17%), and HIV (35%) and reflected key populations for STD prevention, including young adults (19%) and men who have sex with men (12%). However, notable gaps, such as limited research on pregnant women (3%), existed. There was limited geographic diversity, both within and outside the US and descriptive abstracts outnumbered intervention abstracts, 4 to 1. Almost half (41%) of abstracts didn’t provide the date of data collection; while of the abstracts that did, nearly 75% reported on data collected in the past 3 years.
Conclusions: Overall, submitted abstracts suggest that STD research was broad in terms of populations and infections investigated, used a variety of data sources and methods, and was timely. However, important gaps existed, such as limited research on pregnant women and studies describing the results of interventions. Findings can be used to monitor trends in research over time and to help inform a research agenda.