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. 2021 Jul 1;48(7):e91-e93.
doi: 10.1097/OLQ.0000000000001427.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Sexually Transmitted Infection/Human Immunodeficiency Virus Testing Among Adolescents in a Large Pediatric Primary Care Network

Stephen Bonett  1 , Danielle Petsis  2 , Nadia Dowshen, José Bauermeister  1 , Sarah M Wood
Affiliations

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Sexually Transmitted Infection/Human Immunodeficiency Virus Testing Among Adolescents in a Large Pediatric Primary Care Network

Stephen Bonett et al. Sex Transm Dis. .

Abstract

Disruptions in sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to impact STI service delivery for adolescents. Within a large pediatric primary care network, we compared STI testing encounters between the pandemic period and an analogous prepandemic period. The STI test counts decreased and test positivity increased during the pandemic period.

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Conflict of interest statement

Sources of Funding: Supported by grants K23MH119976 (S.M.W.) and K23MH102128 (N.D.) from the National Institute of Mental Health; and by a Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness and PolicyLab pilot grant. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Total test counts, positive and negative test counts, and test positivity rates from March 2019 - October 2020 for chlamydia and gonorrhea.
Note: Bars represent the total number tests sent for each STI each month, the shaded region of the bars represents positive results from these tests, the unshaded region represents negative results from these tests, and the lines represent test positivity rate. Test counts are shown on the left axis, test positivity rates are shown on the right axis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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