Background: Juvenile detention centers offer public health practitioners an opportunity to gain access to large numbers of adolescents at risk for chlamydia and gonorrhea.
Goal: To describe the prevalence and coinfection of chlamydia and gonorrhea among adolescents in 14 US juvenile detention centers from 1997 to 2002.
Study: We calculated the prevalence of chlamydia and gonorrhea in males and females, stratified by race/ethnicity, age group, and site. We also calculated the proportion of adolescents with chlamydia that were coinfected with gonorrhea and the proportion of those with gonorrhea that were coinfected with chlamydia.
Results: The prevalence of chlamydia was 15.6% in 33,619 females and 5.9% in 98,296 males; gonorrhea prevalence was 5.1% in females and 1.3% in males. Of females with gonorrhea, 54% were coinfected with chlamydia, and 51% of males with gonorrhea were coinfected with chlamydia.
Conclusions: Chlamydia and gonorrhea prevalence was very high in females in all project sites. In males, chlamydia prevalence was high in some areas; however, gonorrhea prevalence was substantially lower. These prevalence data justify screening for chlamydia and gonorrhea among female adolescents in juvenile detention centers nationally.