851: STI Surveillance Report, Maryland “SHIP” A Team Effort

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Wednesday, February 26, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

BRADLEY STONER: 

More than 2.4 million STIs were reported in the United States in 2023 and this is down slightly from 2022 but the impact of STIs remains severe in the nation.

JOHNSON: 

That's the CDC's new director of the Division of STD prevention, Dr. Bradley Stoner. He's reporting the findings in the latest STI Surveillance Report.

STONER: 

Overall, syphilis increased only 1% after years of double digit increases, and we take this as a sign of the epidemic hopefully slowing down. We're heartened by the fact that primary and secondary syphilis went down, and these declines are extremely promising, because these are the most infectious stages of the condition.

JOHNSON: 

Stoner hopes the surveillance report is a tool for health departments.

STONER: 

The help STI programs understand where to allocate the resources and to better identify who needs them the most. Health departments can also access county-level syphilis data from our website to identify counties with high rates of syphilis.

JOHNSON: 

Stoner also says, we must take advantage of these promising numbers.

STONER: 

Well, this momentum really cannot be wasted. We've seen the slowing of the epidemic, and we want to continue the important work that happens every day at the local level with our state and territorial health officers. So, thank you for all the work that you do.

JOHNSON: 

You can read the full surveillance report by clicking the link in the show notes.

Maryland recently completed its State Health Improvement Plan, or SHIP. Katherine Feldman, with the Maryland Department of Health tells us more.

KATHERINE FELDMAN: 

So, with the goal of having a State Health Improvement Plan that reflects current health priorities for Maryland, we had to reconstitute what was lost during the pandemic in order to conduct a state health assessment and facilitate a collaborative approach to state health improvement planning.

JOHNSON: 

The SHIP took input from across the state.

FELDMAN: 

We conducted a community input survey, offered in multiple languages, to collect input from individual Maryland residents on their top health concerns in their communities, and we reviewed local community health needs assessments and health improvement plans to understand identified priorities across all of Maryland's 24 local health jurisdictions.

JOHNSON: 

Feldman and her team also took advantage of support from organizations like ASTHO.

FELDMAN: 

There are tremendous resources available to health departments to assist in assessment and planning processes ranging from online guidance and toolkits to the provision of technical assistance by national partner organizations such as ASTHO and the Public Health Accreditation Board, or PHAB.

JOHNSON: 

You can read more about SHIP and the work Maryland did in an ASTHO blog article. It's online now. Just use the link in the show notes to learn more.

Also, another ASTHO article you may want to check out, outlines heart disease and stroke prevention in the Pacific territories. Find out how a learning collaborative is working. Click the link in the show notes to read it today.

Finally, this morning, we want to congratulate the Alabama Department of Public Health on its anniversary, marking 150 years. The department plans to celebrate all year long with local activities throughout the state and communications that highlight the milestones and achievements in public health over the past 150 years. Congratulations to Alabama.

That'll do it for today. We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Summer Johnson, you're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.