An increase in sexually transmitted infections seen in US emergency departments.

Surveillance data show that there is an increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STI) and we believe that because of this increased incidence, coupled with a deteriorating public health infrastructure, these STIs are being seen more often in emergency departments. Therefore, we used six years of the most recently available nationally-representative emergency department data to show an increase in the number of emergency department visits where a sexually transmitted infection was treated. We further described the population for these visits.