The National Chlamydia Coalition and NCC News welcome our new subscribers from the Minnesota Chlamydia Partnership!   

If you have feedback or items you'd like to see included in future editions, please contact Alana Ward at award@prevent.org.  

Find the NCC on Facebook!

The National Chlamydia Coalition is now on Facebook. To follow the NCC, simply visit our page and click the "like" button. Don't forget to share it with your friends and colleagues!

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed that STI screening and high intensity behavioral counseling--

consistent with recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)--should be covered services for Medicare beneficiaries. The Proposed Decision Memo on which public comments are sought proposes that STI screening be conducted with FDA approved laboratory tests, in compliance with the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (CLIA) regulations, ordered by a primary care provider, and performed by an eligible Medicare provider. Medicare covers over 40 million people, 10% of whom are under age 65. Also, Medicare coverage policies exert a strong influence on subsequent coverage decisions of private and other public insurance programs. 

Comments on this important Medicare Benefit Determination are due by September 9, 2011 and can be submitted electronically. Note that HIV and cervical cancer screening are not included in this CMS action, as they are both already covered Medicare services.

New Study Released on Interventions to Improve Chlamydia Screening Rates in Primary Care    

A systematic review of the efficacy of interventions to increase uptake of chlamydia testing in primary care settings was published August 5, 2011. The authors identified 16 interventions (11 randomized controlled trials and  5 observational studies) which had been published since a 2006 review. Greatest increases in screening rates came from two interventions in which office systems were modified so all eligible patients were  routinely offered  urine-based chlamydia tests. Two provider education interventions showed smaller, statistically significant improvements and computer-based physician reminders showed small improvements.  

The 19^th Conference of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research (ISSTDR) was held in Quebec City, Canada, July 10-13, 2011. Among the many topics addressed were cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea, the high rates of trichomonas infections among American women, and home testing for chlamydial infection. For more in-depth summaries of these topics, click here. To view conference presentations, click here.   

Reducing Adolescent Sexual Risk, a new book by Douglas Kirby, PhD and colleagues, is available for download, free of charge, on the Chlamydia Resource Exchange (CRE). The book helps health professionals design, adapt and select curriculum-based programs to effectively address critical factors that affect teens' sexual decision making. It is ideal for program planners, policy makers, district administrators and youth-serving organizations. While visiting the CRE, be sure to upload your public awareness materials that may be useful to others! 

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched several new data and analysis tools intended to serve as resources for the promotion of policy, system and environmental changes to improve health. An interactive sortable statistical tool, policy implementation analyses, and burden assessments are now available for use.

 In honor of National Immunization Awareness Month, CDC has developed a quiz to find out which vaccines are recommended for adolescents and adults.