Temporary changes in STI & HIV testing & diagnoses across different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chicago IL

Maria Pyra; Tommy Schafer; Laura Rusie; Magda Houlberg; Hale M Thompson; Anu Hazra

doi:10.3389/frph.2023.1072700

Temporary changes in STI & HIV testing & diagnoses across different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chicago IL

Front Reprod Health. 2023 May 3:5:1072700. doi: 10.3389/frph.2023.1072700. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Maria Pyra^{1

2}, Tommy Schafer¹, Laura Rusie¹, Magda Houlberg¹, Hale M Thompson¹, Anu Hazra^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Data, Evaluation, & Epidemiology, Howard Brown Health, Chicago, IL, United States.
² Institute for Sexual & Gender Minority Health & Wellbeing, Medical Social Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States.
³ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.

Abstract

Introduction: While the U.S. has seen a sustained rise in STI cases over the past decade, the impact of the COVID-19 on STIs and HIV is unclear.

Methods: To examine the short- and medium-term impacts of COVID-19 and HIV and STI testing and diagnosis, we compared pre-pandemic trends to three periods of the pandemic: early- pandemic, March-May 2020; mid-pandemic June 2020-May 2021; and late-pandemic, June 2021-May 2022. We compared average number of monthly tests and diagnoses, overall and by gender, as well as the monthly change (slope) in testing and diagnoses.

Results: We find that after decreases in average monthly STI and HIV testing and diagnoses during the early- and mid-pandemic, cases were largely back to pre-pandemic levels by the late-pandemic, with some variation by gender.

Conclusion: Changes in testing and diagnoses varied by phase of the pandemic. Some key populations may require additional outreach efforts to attain pre-pandemic testing levels.

Keywords: COVID- 19; HIV testing; MSM (men having sex with men); STI testing; transgender.