Risk profile forchlamydia infection in women from public health clinics in New York State

The prevalence of chlamydial infection and associated risk factors were studied in 1531 women from ten clinics in New York State excluding New York City. OverallChlamydia infection rates were 13.6%; 17.6% in eight high risk family planning and STD clinics, and 5.7% in two low risk college and private clinics. Risk factors forChlamydia infection included: age <20 years (odds ratio 1.6), use of oral contraceptives (odds ratio 2.0), a history of having more than one sexual partner (odds ratio 1.7) and, in one clinic where data was available, inflammation on Papanicolaou smears (odds ratio 2.1).These data helped secure funding forChlamydia preventive services and permitted development of a risk profile (score card) ofChlamydia for each age group. Use of such a score card can be most helpful in assigning which patients could benefit most fromChlamydia cultures, especially in those areas where testing is unavailable or too costly to screen all patients.All authors are from the New York State Department of Health. Yangsook Han is a research scientist, AIDS Institute; Dale Morse is Director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control, Charles Lawrence is chief of the Biometrics Laboratory, Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research; Dennis Murphy is STD program director and Sally Hipp is STD special projects director.