A study from FAIR Health in July 2024, presented as an infographic, shows that the percentage of commercially insured patients with sexually transmitted disease (STD) diagnoses rose by 4.8% from 2020 to 2023. The results are taken from FAIR Health’s repository of over 47 billion commercial healthcare claim records, described as the “largest” in the US. The findings are consistent with CDC data from 2012 to 2022.
Key observations
While the overall increase for all patients was 4.8%, the largest increase was observed in patients aged 65 and older (23.8%). This is followed by patients aged 55 to 64 (16.2% increase). The fastest-growing STD diagnoses in this study were syphilis (29.4%), gonorrhoea (16.8%), and HIV and AIDS (14.1%).
The greatest increase in cases of human papillomavirus (HPV) was also in the age group of 65 and older (32.2%), followed by patients aged 55 to 64 (21.9%). While the percentage of male patients with gonorrhoea grew by 59.2%, the percentage of female patients with the same diagnosis declined by 19.3%. For syphilis, the percentage of male patients grew by 22.9% and the percentage of female patients grew by 46.5%.
FAIR Health President, Robin Gelburd, emphasised that “central to FAIR Health’s mission” is to use the “vast repository of claims data to provide data on public health concerns and support research by others”.
“We hope this information brings greater clarity to the incidence of STDs.”
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