Gonorrhea Prevalence Among Young Women and Men Entering the National Job Training Program, 2000-2017.

Abstract

<i>Objectives.</i> To examine long-term gonorrhea prevalence trends from a sentinel surveillance population of young people at elevated risk for gonorrhea.<i>Methods.</i> We analyzed annual cross-sectional urogenital gonorrhea screening data from 191 991 women (2000-2017) and 224 348 men (2003-2017) 16 to 24 years of age entering the National Job Training Program, a US vocational training program. We estimated prevalence among women using an expectation-maximization algorithm incorporated into a logistic regression to account for increases in screening test sensitivity; log-binomial regression was used to estimate prevalence among men.<i>Results.</i> The adjusted gonorrhea prevalence among women followed a U-shaped curve, falling from 2.9% to 1.6% from 2000 through 2011 before rising to 2.7% in 2017. The prevalence among men declined from 1.4% to 0.8% from 2003 through 2017. In the case of both women and men, the prevalence was highest across all study years among those who were Black or American Indian/Alaska Native and those who resided in the South or Midwest.<i>Conclusions.</i> Trends among National Job Training Program enrollees suggest that gonorrhea prevalence is rising among young women while remaining low and steady among young men.