Chair Schulman on STI and HIV rate trends and disparities
Dr. Bronson shares data showing most reported STIs decreased or remained stable in 2024, but HIV diagnoses increased for the fourth consecutive year with persistent disparities—86% of new HIV diagnoses were Black or Latino, and syphilis rates among Black women were nine times higher than white women.
What trends is DOHMH currently observing in STI and HIV rates citywide, including demographic or geographic disparities?
Yeah, I'm going to call up Dr.
Sarah Bronstein to join me on this, but just to give you a very sort of high-level overview,
what we see from our last recorded data set is that most reported STIs either decreased or remained stable.
This is generally good.
I think, again, there's much more work that we can do, but this is encouraging.
So I'm going to hand it over to Dr.
Bronson.
Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth for the committee and to respond honestly to council member questions?
You may begin.
Yes.
Thank you for this question, Councilmember, Chair Schulman.
As our Commissioner mentioned, we do see concerning trends in HIV.
As we've mentioned before, in 2024, we saw the fourth consecutive year in which new HIV diagnoses increased in the city or remained stable.
And that really is in contrast to market declines that we observed prior to 2020.
We'd also mentioned at the preliminary hearing that in 2024,
We saw an estimated 17% increase in estimated new HIV infections compared with 2023 and really persistent disparities across all the factors we measure, including race and ethnicity and gender.
So, for example, 86% of people newly diagnosed with HIV in 2024 were black or Latino, and 42% of people with new HIV diagnoses lived in high or very high poverty areas of the city.
In somewhat in contrast, in some ways, STIs, we see something a bit different.
As the Commissioner mentioned, in 2024, we did actually see rates of most reported STIs decreased or remain relatively stable compared to 2023.
And that is a promising trend that differs from previous years.
But like for HIV, we do see persistent disparities by race and ethnicity and other factors for STIs.
For example, the primary and secondary syphilis rate among black women in 2024 was nine times higher than the rate among white women.
This is, of course, concerning in and of itself, and because congenital syphilis is something that we are very actively monitoring and working to prevent.
And chlamydia and gonorrhea rates among people living in very high poverty neighborhoods in the city were three times higher than rates among people living in lower poverty neighborhoods.
Okay, don't go anywhere.