ISSN: 2161-1165

Epidemiology: Open Access
Open Access

Our Group organises 3000+ Global Conferenceseries Events every year across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more scientific Societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains over 50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board members.

Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations
700 Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers

This Readership is 10 times more when compared to other Subscription Journals (Source: Google Analytics)
  • Research Article   
  • Epidemiology (Sunnyvale) 2016, Vol 6(2): 226
  • DOI: 10.4172/2161-1165.1000226

Estimates of Risk for Chlamydia/Gonorrhea Associated with Disciplinary Alternative School Placement in United States Public High Schools

M Jacques Nsuami1*, Musheni Nsa2,3, Christine Brennan4, David H Martin1 and Stephanie N Taylor1
1Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, USA
2Department of Pediatrics, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, , Baton Rouge, LA, USA
3Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA
4School of Public Health, Health Policy, and Systems Management, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, USA
*Corresponding Author : M Jacques Nsuami, Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, USA, Tel: 504-568-5031, Email: mnsuam@lsuhsc.edu

Received Date: Feb 16, 2016 / Accepted Date: Feb 22, 2016 / Published Date: Feb 26, 2016

Abstract

Background: In United States public schools, students in disciplinary alternative schools report engaging in risky sexual behaviors significantly more frequently than students in regular schools. We sought to determine whether the risk of chlamydia or gonorrhea infection in disciplinary alternative schools is significantly higher relative to the risk of infection in regular schools.

Methods: A matched case-control study was retrospectively designed using data obtained from New Orleans public high school students tested for chlamydia and gonorrhea in a school-based screening between the years 2001 and 2003. Cases were 63 African American students tested at a disciplinary alternative school during the school years 2001-2002 (n = 36) and 2002-2003 (n = 27). Each case was matched to 4 controls by date of birth, sex and race among respectively 3029 and 2216 students contemporaneously tested in regular schools. Mantel-Haenszel procedures for matched-pair analysis were used to estimate odds ratios, confidence intervals (CI) and significance tests.

Results: The odds ratio for chlamydia/gonorrhea infection associated with placement in disciplinary alternative school was 2.09 overall (95% CI 1.01, 4.30; p < 0.05), 1.43 (95% CI 0.50, 4.11; p > 0.40) among females and 3.25 (95% CI 1.18, 8.92; p < 0.025) among males.

Conclusions: Behaviorally troubled adolescents in disciplinary alternative school placement are the highest risk group for sexually transmitted infection ever identified in United States public high schools. These students and the disciplinary alternative schools where they are placed would benefit most from screening. They should be considered first for inclusion in any school-wide chlamydia and gonorrhea screening initiative.

Keywords: Infectious disease epidemiology; Matched case-control study; Risk estimate; Sexually transmitted infection; Adolescents

Citation: Nsuami MJ, Nsa M, Brennan C, Martin DH, Taylor SN (2016) Estimates of Risk for Chlamydia/Gonorrhea Associated with Disciplinary Alternative School Placement in United States Public High Schools. Epidemiology (sunnyvale) 6:226. Doi: 10.4172/2161-1165.1000226

Copyright: © 2016 Nsuami MJ, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Review summary

  1. Symon Dean
    Posted on Oct 03 2016 at 4:47 pm
    The Mantel-Haenszel procedure was developed for use in retrospective studies. I am confident that some schools in New Orleans still have such designations and that there may still be some teachers around who were influenced by this concept, which I think was a good one then and remains a good one now for reasons that are emphasized in this study.
Top