{"id":1101,"date":"2026-09-25T04:31:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T00:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2026-09-25T04:31:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T00:31:41","slug":"what-do-we-mean-by-a-reportable-std","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/what-do-we-mean-by-a-reportable-std\/","title":{"rendered":"What do we mean by a reportable STD?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is mandated by law that certain communicable (infectious) diseases be<br \/>\nreported to the local health department (LHD) when there is a positive test or<br \/>\ndisease diagnosis. By documenting age, gender, ethnicity, and addresses<br \/>\nfor all reportable STDs, local (County or City) and State health departments<br \/>\ncan establish a database for monitoring disease trends and planning<br \/>\ninterventions. Although the personal information of the patient is attached to<br \/>\nthe diagnosis, the reporting process is highly confidential. All identifying<br \/>\ninformation is removed from disease data that is sent to the Centers for<br \/>\nDisease Control (CDC). This way patient confidentiality is maintained while<br \/>\nCDC is still able to monitor State and local trends.<br \/>\nPositive Test Patient ID to LHJ Patient ID to State without IDs<br \/>\nto CDC<br \/>\nThe Health Department disease database has several critical purposes,<br \/>\nincluding to:<br \/>\n(1) monitor the trends of different diseases;<br \/>\n(2) plan appropriate responses to disease outbreaks or epidemics;<br \/>\n(3) target the distribution of resources to the most critical geographical<br \/>\nareas (i.e., build clinics, distribute vaccines, apply for grants, etc.);<br \/>\n(4) monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of these responses, and if<br \/>\nneed be,<br \/>\n(5) declare a public emergency to protect the public\u2019s health.<br \/>\nIn California the following STDs are reportable and non-reportable:<br \/>\nReportable Not Reportable<br \/>\nChlamydia Human Papillomavirus (HPV)<br \/>\nGonorrhea Genital Herpes (HSV)<br \/>\nPelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) Trichomoniasis<br \/>\nNon-Gonococcal Urethritis (NGU)<br \/>\n&#8211; (NGU) is no longer reportable as of January, 2007)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Syphilis<\/li>\n<li>Chancroid<\/li>\n<li>Hepatitis B<\/li>\n<li>Hepatitis C<\/li>\n<li>AIDS<\/li>\n<li>HIV Infection (as of April, 2006)<\/li>\n<li>Note: Shigella, Hepatitis A, Giardia, Entamoeba, and Cryptosporidium are also reportable and can besexually transmitted.<br \/>\n*Acute is an infection of 6 months or less and Chronic is an infection of more than 6 months.<br \/>\n27<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>III. Benefits of Data Collection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>STD data are used to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Track trends over time<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Allocate funds for testing, treatment, prevention, and research<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Assure correct treatment of individual cases<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Notify sex and needle sharing partners of exposure for testing<br \/>\nand treatment<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Identify and fight outbreaks when they happen<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Conduct program planning &amp; community advocacy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>IV. Limitations of Data<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reported data only includes those patients who seek care, get<br \/>\ndiagnosed and tested, and have a provider and\/or laboratory who<br \/>\nreports that diagnosis. It is estimated that there may be 2 to 5<br \/>\ntimes more cases per year than are actually reported.<\/li>\n<li>Race and ethnicity data are not as well captured in STD reporting.<br \/>\nRace and ethnicity are not specified in about one fourth of all the<br \/>\nreported cases in California and even up to two thirds of the cases in<br \/>\nsome health jurisdictions.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes an increase in incidence can be due to increased<br \/>\nscreening or better reporting. Therefore, although the numbers go<br \/>\nup, it doesn\u2019t always necessarily mean there is more disease<br \/>\ntransmission, sometimes just more detection of disease that is<br \/>\nalready present in the population.<\/li>\n<li>Estimates for STDs that are not reportable are based on studies and<br \/>\nthen calculated for larger populations. Depending on how the study<br \/>\nwas conducted, this can affect the estimated verses actual rates.<br \/>\nSome national data (like NHANES) may be extrapolated for state<br \/>\ndata based on percent of population alone<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is mandated by law that certain communicable (infectious) diseases be reported to the local health department (LHD) when there is a positive test or disease diagnosis. By documenting age, gender, ethnicity, and addresses for all reportable STDs, local (County or City) and State health departments can establish a database for monitoring disease trends and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-std","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubaistdclinic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}