Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
9 <br />~~ participant responses. The specific intervention strategies recommended for Guilford County <br />are: <br />1. " Increase STD, specifically syphilis, knowledge in the community. <br />' 2. Increase awareness of health department STD services. <br />3. Increase community-level and street outreach to the affected communities. <br />4. Improve public health professionals' health education skills. <br />S. Promote and facilitate access to drug treatment. <br />6. Improve access to the at-risk population by collaborating with exrternal partners (e.g. <br />family planning, WIC, battered women shelters, jails, housing authority, drug <br />' treatment, parks and recreation) to provide STD information, screening, and treatment <br />services: " <br />7. Increase mutually supportive and collaborative partnerships between and among <br />community-based organizations and the health. department.. <br />. 8. Conduct evaluations of e3asting prevention strategies. <br />Although developed for Guilford County, the similarities of the syphilis epidemics in the fzve <br />counties lead us to believe that these recommendations are excellent planning tools for this five- <br />county syphilis elimination project. <br />The health sen~ices available specifically for STDs in the five-county tazget area include one on- <br />site clinic in each county health department, open five days per week. In addition, serologic <br />testing for syphilis is currently performed by a small number of community-based organizations <br />in this azea. Extension of serologic testing services to better reach the population at high risk is <br />clearly needed and is one of the goals of this project. Partner notification services are provided <br />by ten DIS who serve this area; these staff are responsible for all syphilis and H1V cases in tizeir <br />azea, but do not perform any follow-up for other STD cases. Surveillance for STDs in the five- <br />". county area is largely passive. Occasional reminders are sent to private physicians to encourage <br />reporting. In addition, laboratory reporting of positive serologic tests for syphilis is legally <br />mandated and provides another route for identification of cases to the State. North Carolina does <br />not currently have any special surveillance arrangements to identify cases in jails, emergency <br />rooms, drug treatment centers, or other entities which serve higiz-risk populations. <br />The local county health directors from this five-county area met in September, 1997 to discuss <br />the escalaxing syphilis epidemic in the ar-„a.. In addition to providing accessible and prompt STD <br />diagnosis and treatment, the group agreed to: I) designate an outbreakresponsetenm of 1-2 <br />people from each county to assist other counties in syphilis intervention when indicated by <br />morbidity, incluaing working with the Section in RI.O.T. preparations and efforts when needed; <br />2) work with the Section to continue to facilitate communication and collaboration between local <br />health departments, CBOs and private providers; and 3) discuss syphilis and other STDs at the <br />regional health directors conference every quarter. The health directors have subsequently given <br />the syphilis elimination project, as outlined here, their full support <br />4 <br />