Continuing Need for Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinics After the Affordable Care Act

We assessed the characteristics of sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic patients, their reasons for seeking health services in STD clinics, and their access to health care in other venues.

In 2013, we surveyed persons who used publicly funded STD clinics in 21 US cities with the highest STD morbidity.

Of the 4364 STD clinic patients we surveyed, 

• 58.5% were younger than 30 years, 
• 72.5% were non-White, 
• and 49.9% were uninsured. 

They visited the clinic for 

• STD symptoms (18.9%), 
• STD screening (33.8%), 
• and HIV testing (13.6%). 

Patients chose STD clinics because of 

• walk-in, same-day appointments (49.5%), 
• low cost (23.9%), 
• and expert care (8.3%). 

Among STD clinic patients, 

• 60.4% had access to another type of venue for sick care, 
• and 58.5% had access to another type of venue for preventive care. 
• Most insured patients (51.6%) were willing to use insurance to pay for care at the STD clinic.

Despite access to other health care settings, patients chose STD clinics for sexual health care because of convenient, low-cost, and expert care. 

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By: Hoover KW1, Parsell BW1, Leichliter JS1, Habel MA1, Tao G1, Pearson WS1, Gift TL1.

• 1Karen W. Hoover, Jami S. Leichliter, Melissa A. Habel, Guoyu Tao, William S. Pearson, and Thomas L. Gift are with the Division of STD Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Bradley W. Parsell is with the National Opinion Research Center, Chicago, IL.  

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