Sexually Transmitted Infections

Limitations

New STI cases by county of residence, 2000-2023 (a person can count more than once; congenital syphilis is its own topic). OASIS hides county counts of 1-4 and groups under 100 residents (NULL). Where race or ethnicity is unknown for over 20% of a place-year's cases, race-group counts and rates are NULL (our mask): Georgia's race series starts in 2021. Georgia's row has cases placed in no county until 2014. Reporting breaks: 2016 (Grady Memorial), 2019 (race recording), 2020 (COVID-19). Age-adjusted rates are OASIS's: weighted averages of age-specific rates with the year 2000 U.S. standard million as weights, so places and groups with different age mixes compare fairly; they never add or average across rows. CDC's national STI rates are crude rates: compare them with sti_case_rate_per_100k. Counts are new cases (incidence) reported to DPH, by county of residence: a person diagnosed twice, or with two infections, counts each time (OASIS's definitions). OASIS hides a county's count of 1-4 cases (code -7) and, at every level, the count of a group with fewer than 100 residents in the place that has a case (-6), with their rates (NULL here); it shows Georgia's own small counts and withholds every rate on 1-4 cases. The platform adds no disclosure suppression of its own and computes nothing OASIS's own table does not already give; its one quality mask, on race groups (below), can NULL a published count, 0 included. A group with no residents in a place (num_population 0) has no rate (NULL): OASIS shows 0 there, but a rate on no population is undefined and would rank as the lowest (our mask; the count stays 0). 71 of the 41,728 rows with a published case outside race_unknown (44,949 with it; race_unknown has no rate) have no age-adjusted rate: 44 are Georgia rows with 1-4 cases, the rest groups with an age group of no residents. Where race or ethnicity is unknown for more than 20% of a place-year's cases (race_unknown / all), the race groups' counts and rates for that place and year are NULL (our mask, OASIS's own 20% threshold for missing items): each group's count would miss its share of the unknowns, so its rate runs low and its trend follows the recording, not the group. The all, sex and race_unknown rows are kept, so the unknown share stays visible. The share is measured on all STIs (infection = 'all') and the mask covers every infection of that place and year. Georgia's share was 41-53% in 2000-2018, 22% in 2019-2020 and 16-18% in 2021-2023. Where a county's race_unknown is NULL (below), the share is bounded on OASIS's whole race x ethnicity table of the county (a hidden count is 1-4, or at least 1 for a group under 100 residents) and, where that leaves it open, on all of OASIS's tables of the year together (each infection's table, all STIs never below the infections' sum and equal to it from 2015, and OASIS's county total equal to the counties' sum); the mask applies where the share is surely over 20%, including 7 county-years whose total OASIS hides and 27 settled only by the joint tables; 59 county-years whose range still straddles 20% are left unmasked. Race groups follow the platform convention from OASIS's race x ethnicity cross: hispanic is Hispanic of any race; white, black, asian, native_american (American Indian or Alaska Native), pacific_islander (Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander) and multiracial are non-Hispanic. race_unknown is our calculation, the total minus those seven (unknown ethnicity, or non-Hispanic of unknown race), so the race groups add up to all wherever every count is published; it has no population and so no rate, and it is NULL wherever OASIS hides a count it subtracts (all, hispanic or a non-Hispanic race). Where OASIS hides only its own unknown race or ethnicity cells, race_unknown is still given (its own table gives the same figure), so in a county it can be 1-4. race_unknown is 16% (2022) to 53% (2001) of Georgia's cases a year; it fell from 41,212 in 2018 to 21,266 in 2019 while OASIS's black cases rose 48% and all cases 6%, a recording change (our reading). race_unknown is NULL on 15,226 rows, where OASIS hides a count it subtracts, and published on 22,298 county rows, 411 of them 1-4. Georgia's smallest race groups fall across 2021-2023, the only years its race rows are served (multiracial 366, 108 and 66, native_american 148, 103 and 63, pacific_islander 67, 61 and 34 cases), while all STIs hold steady (106,467, 111,394 and 109,777): probably a recording change (our reading), so don't read them as trends. pacific_islander has no rows in 2000-2007 and multiracial none in 2000-2007 and 2009: OASIS shows no case of any STI for them anywhere those years (multiracial: 3 in 2008, 37 in 2010), though 3,492-4,924 non-Hispanic Georgians were Pacific Islander and 68,636-136,447 multiracial in those years, so the groups were not recorded on case reports (our reading). Cases of unknown sex have no platform group: they count in all only, so male + female can fall short of all. They are at most 1.5% of Georgia's cases a year. Georgia's row includes cases OASIS placed in no county (Georgia minus OASIS's total of its counties, all STIs): 0-40 a year in 2000-2010, 382-472 a year in 2011-2013 and 36 in 2014, none from 2015, so counties don't add up to it. From 2005 OASIS places cases by geocoded address; 2000-2004 use the county the case report states (OASIS's data issues page), so county series can shift between 2004 and 2005. Rockdale County's 2000 count, 2,750 STI cases, is about five times its 2001-2008 counts (309-532) while Georgia's total barely moves, and OASIS does not explain it: read Rockdale 2000 with caution (its female rate is the highest age_adjusted_sti_case_rate_per_100k here). Grady Memorial Hospital began reporting chlamydia and gonorrhea in 2016 (OASIS), so part of that year's rise is reporting, not infection. Gonorrhea went from 15,705 in 2015 to 20,151 in 2016, chlamydia from 56,215 to 61,315. Chlamydia fell from 67,953 in 2019 to 61,990 in 2020 and returned to 67,872 in 2021, probably less testing during COVID-19 (our reading). Since 2014 OASIS counts unknown-latency syphilis inside late latency (late_latent_syphilis 700 in 2013, 1,130 in 2014), and neurosyphilis shows 0 everywhere from 2006 (27 cases in 2004, 4 in 2005; undocumented): unknown_latency_syphilis has no rows from 2014 and neurosyphilis none from 2006 (categories no longer used), and late_latent_syphilis is no trend across 2013-2014. The infections never overlap and add up to all from 2015; before, all exceeds them by up to 17 cases (2005, Georgia), cases in no listed category. Chancroid has no case in any year. Not served: age (cut platform-wide), unknown sex, and congenital syphilis (its rate divides by live births). 2023 is the newest year OASIS's STD module offers. tract_geoid is always NULL.