Open Forum Infectious Diseases MAJOR ARTICLE DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofad368 1 Relationship Between Sexually Transmitted Infections and Social Determinants of Health in Durham County, North Carolina, United States Jeffrey D. Jenks 1,2 , Emma Nipp 3 , Ananya Tadikonda 3 , Nishitha Karumuri 3 , Kristie Morales-Lagunes 3 , Savannah Carrico 1 , Marissa Mortiboy 1 , John-Paul Zitta 1 1 Durham County Department of Public Health, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America. 2 Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America. 3 Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America. Background: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are increasing in the United States (U.S.), and certain populations are more at risk than others. One explanation for this is inequities in underlying social determinants of health (SDOH). Methods: We analyzed chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis cases in Durham County, North Carolina (NC), U.S. from 01/01/2020-12/31/2020 by select SDOH at the census tract level. We included 48 variables of interest, including variables related to income, education, transportation, and health insurance. For each variable, we model STI incidence at the census tract level using Poisson regression. Wald’s chi-square was used to determine which variables were significantly associated with STI incidence. Results: Of 24 variables which were statistically associated with STI incidence at the census tract level, nine were negatively associated and 15 positively associated with STI incidence. Having employer health insurance was most strongly associated with lower-than-expected STI —————————————————————————————————————————— *Corresponding Author: Jeffrey Jenks, MD, MPH, Durham County Department of Public Health, Durham, North Carolina, 27701, United States of America, Email: jeffrey.jenks@duke.edu © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ofid/ofad368/7223660 by guest on 15 July 2023