Health Statistics

Rates of the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia are climbing in the U.S., and rates of syphilis -- once on the verge of elimination -- rose for the seventh consecutive year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in its annual report on STDs. Gonorrhea rates did not increase, but they ceased falling a few years ago, frustrating goals set by public health leaders. Chlamydia infections in the United States now top 1.

Between 1.8 million and 5.7 million Americans caught pandemic H1N1 influenza this spring, as many as 21,000 were hospitalized, and perhaps 800 died, according to new estimates by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The revised numbers suggest that even larger numbers will become infected during this flu season. Estimates, as opposed to specific numbers, are the best data available. Many cases are not reported to public health authorities, and the CDC stopped requiring laboratory confirmation of new cases when labs were becoming overwhelmed.

Patients are waiting longer for care in the nation's emergency rooms, a potentially deadly result of the shrinking number of emergency departments and rising demand for services, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School. Half of all emergency room patients waited 30 minutes or longer before being examined by a doctor in 2004, a 36% increase from a median wait time of 22 minutes in 1997, according to the study, published Monday in the journal Health Affairs.

A comprehensive study of abortion in America underscores a striking change in the landscape, with ever-fewer pregnant women choosing abortion and those who do increasingly opting to avoid surgical clinics. The number of abortions has plunged to 1.2 million a year, down 25% since peaking in 1990, according to a report released today -- days before the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

When California officials announced this month that they would begin tracking virulent "superbug" infections in gyms, schools and other community settings, they billed it as a major advance in public health. But the plan would capture just a fraction of drug-resistant infections, leaving the vast majority unreported to the state and unknown to the public, according to experts and consumer advocates.

Nearly 3 million people in developing countries are now receiving antiretroviral drugs to treat AIDS, a treatment goal that health authorities had hoped to meet two years ago, according to a new report released Monday. About 1 million people received the life-saving drugs for the first time during 2007, according to the report from UNAIDS, the World Health Organization and UNICEF. During the same period, however, an additional 2.

CALIFORNIANS who use hands-free cellular devices while driving may be doing themselves a favor in the long run. That's because scientists still can't say with certainty that placing a cellphone against the head is completely safe, especially for heavy users and people who began using the devices as children. They point to lingering questions over the potential health effects from the energy emitted by the phones, specifically the long-debated risk of developing brain cancer.

The number of AIDS deaths worldwide dropped 10% in 2007 because of increasing access to treatment, as did the number of new infections in children, the United Nations reported Tuesday. Condom use and prevention efforts increased in many countries and adolescent sexual intercourse declined in some of the most heavily affected regions, the report says. "In a surprisingly short period of time, there has been a tripling of prevention efforts in some countries," said Dr.

Sleep apnea, brief disruptions of breathing during the night that affect as many as 12 million Americans, increases the risk of death four- to sixfold, according to two new studies released today. Results from the studies "remove any reasonable doubt that sleep apnea is a fatal disease," said epidemiologist Nathaniel S. Marshall of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Australia, lead author of one of the two papers published in the journal Sleep.

Federal officials have been underestimating the number of new HIV infections in the United States by 40% every year for more than a decade, a finding that indicates the U.S. epidemic is much worse than thought, researchers said Saturday. Using sophisticated testing to identify new infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that there are about 56,300 new infections each year, not the 40,000 figure that has been gospel for so long.