Mobile Version - September - October 2020
From the Director - Dr. Jonathan Mermin
CDC recently published a five-year strategic plan to prevent and control viral hepatitis in the United States. The 2025 Strategic Plan supports four goals:
- Reduce new viral hepatitis infections.
- Reduce viral hepatitis-related morbidity and mortality.
- Reduce viral hepatitis-related disparities.
- Establish comprehensive national viral hepatitis surveillance.
CDC's planning process results include new outcome measures to track national progress toward these goals. These measures are included in the online 2020 National Viral Hepatitis Progress Report. The report shares trends in viral hepatitis disease incidence and mortality informed by 2018 data. Hepatitis A incidence increased 850% from 2014 to 2018, along with overall mortality associated with Hepatitis C continuing to decrease. Other findings from the report highlight the need to:
- vaccinate populations against hepatitis A and hepatitis B,
- detect and stop ongoing transmission of hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, and
- improve testing and treatment for people with chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
Health and Human Services (HHS) launches America's HIV Epidemic Analysis Dashboard (AHEAD)
The AHEAD dashboard graphically visualizes data on the six Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) HIV indicators for the 57 jurisdictions prioritized in the federal initiative.
Our HIV prevention partners can use these data tables, along with the data published in Atlas Plus and other surveillance reports, to help focus prevention efforts, allocate resources, monitor trends, and determine gaps and successes in HIV prevention. CDC remains committed to publishing these and other important data in a timely manner. Jurisdictions can use the best possible data to help guide decision-making and advance progress toward ending the HIV epidemic in the United States.
Youth Risk Behavior Survey Results (YRBS)
CDC's recently released YRBS is the only surveillance system designed to monitor priority health behaviors and experiences among representative samples of high school students at the national, state, and local levels. New this year is YRBS Explorer, a user-friendly web application featuring national, state, and local YRBS data via tables and graphs. The 2019 YRBS results present a promising picture for some behaviors. These include fewer students having had sex, 46% in 2009 to 38% in 2019. Fewer students had 4 or more sex partners, 14% in 2009 to 9% in 2019. However, challenges still remain to help teens develop lifelong healthy habits. For those students having sex, condom use decreased presenting a serious health threat to STDs, including HIV. Research shows that schools and families can protect against risks by increasing connectedness.