Young Black and Hispanic Women May Be Tested for Chlamydia More Often Than Their White Peers, a Study Finds
Jeannine Stein, Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2011
Young black and Hispanic women may be screened at higher rates for the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia than young white women, a study finds.
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More black and Hispanic young women were tested for chlamydia compared with white young women–the numbers were 65%, 72% and 45%, respectively. Black young women were 2.7 times as likely and Hispanic women were 9.7 times as likely to be screened for the diseased as their white counterparts
Insurance also played a role in who got screened. Young women with public and public pending insurance had a better chance of getting screened for chlamydia than those who were privately insured. When researchers looked at screenings based on public or private insurance status only, they found that young black and Hispanic women still had a greater chance of being screened than young white women.
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As for why this may be occurring, lead study author Dr. Sarah Wiehe said in a news release that perceptions based on race or ethnicity may play a role: “For some common conditions like breast cancer, white women are more likely to receive a screening test like mammography,” she said. “For chlamydia infections–which are highly stigmatized STDs–white women are less likely, while minority women are more likely, to receive screening. This may mean that providers make judgments about a woman’s likelihood of infection based on her race or ethnicity. Yet in an asymptomatic condition like chlamydia, all sexually active young women should be screened.”
The study was published online in the journal Pediatrics.
[The abstract for “Chlamydia Screening Among Young Women: Individual- and Provider-Level Differences in Testing,” by Sarah Wiehle et al. can be read here. A PDF of the complete text is available here. There is a charge.]
