STD Surveillance Network - Chlamydia (CT), gonorrhea (GC), and syphilis are nationally reportable curable bacterial sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In 2022, over 2.5 million cases of STDs were reported nationally to the CDC. Gonorrhea increased by 11.1% and syphilis increased by 78.9% from 2018. The Florida STD program reported over 165,000 cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis from both public and private providers, a 15% increase from 2018. Reported STD cases do not provide a complete picture of the vulnerable populations impacted due to asymptomatic infections, unreported cases, and missing demographic and risk information. To effectively reduce the burden of STDs in Florida, particularly among adolescents and young adults, minority populations, and pregnant women, the STD program plans to significantly improve the functionality of the STD Surveillance and Reporting System (STARS), which is the STD surveillance system used by the Florida Department of Health. If granted the opportunity to continue to be a part of the STD Surveillance Network, the Florida STD Program will identify significant gaps and missed opportunities for STD and HIV prevention services and disease prevention outcomes. Throughout the five-year grant period, the STD Program plans to integrate comprehensive, collaborative, innovative and efficient surveillance activities statewide which will enable Florida to further strengthen STD surveillance capacity. This includes the continuation of both facility and population-based sentinel surveillance, intermittent patient surveys and provider follow-up investigations, HIV registry matching, and short-term activities to identify the burden of STDs and to subsequently advance the state’s STD Program surveillance efforts. Additionally, data quality reports will help the STD program to improve the completeness of core epidemiological variables obtained from both point of care clinics and from laboratories reporting electronically. Proposed facility-based and case-based population surveillance strategies and activities will address the problem statement in the following ways: 1) Obtain a sample fraction of all reported gonorrhea and early syphilis cases throughout the state of Florida that results in complete enhanced case-based investigations for at least 2% of all reported cases, with a target investigation completion rate of 65% of all cases initiated (selected for the project); 2) Enhance procedures that result in high-quality surveillance data in a timely manner; 3) Improve the quality of case-based data collection through interoperability of clinical management applications (e.g., Health Management System [HMS], electronic case reporting [eCR]) and STARS to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the clinical characteristics of target populations and patient care and case management; 4) Estimate screening coverage rates and prevalence within vulnerable populations, including adolescents, young adults, pregnant woman and women of childbearing age, and MSM, served by STD specialty clinics; 5) Improve timely monitoring of STD/HIV clinical and preventative services. This includes monitoring trends in prescribed/administered treatment(s), HIV status, HIV care, PrEP/PEP referrals and usage, and MenB and mpox vaccination status and history; 6) Disseminate findings through STD/HIV related journals, publications, reports, health departments, providers, and key community stakeholders. Evaluation and performance measurement activities will enable the STD Program Office to assess the impact the SSuN activities have on the jurisdiction’s overall STD surveillance infrastructure. Through existing and proposed quality assurance measures, the STD Program Office will have the needed capacity and flexibility to continuously evaluate quality improvements and make needed operational changes. To achieve the expected SSuN outcomes, processes will be monitored on a daily, biweekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. Key personnel expected to participate in
