CDC Data: STDs on the Rise Among Americans Aged 55 and Older

Federal data show sharp spikes in such diseases as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, HIV and Hepatitis C.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta on April 23, 2020. Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have risen sharply among Americans aged 55 and older, according to new data posted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The STDs include gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, HIV, and Hepatitis C.

Syphilis infections among Americans 55 and older increased from about 700 cases in 2012 to more than 5,100 cases in 2022, according to the data. In the same period, gonorrhea cases increased from 3,874 cases to 18,804 cases, CDC charts posted on its website show.

For chlamydia, there were about 6,000 cases in 2012, but in 2022, more than 19,700 cases were reported among Americans aged 55 and older. In 2020, there were more than 13,000 cases of the bacterial infection, suggesting a sharp rise in recent years.

Hepatitis C outbreaks among individuals in that age cohort also spiked. There were about 125 cases in 2012, and more than 1,000 reported in 2022.

Meanwhile, according to the CDC’s website, the state with the highest number of HIV diagnoses among those aged 55 and older is Florida. No. 2 on the list is California, while Texas is third.

New York, Georgia, New Jersey, and Illinois also saw high numbers of HIV diagnoses for the same age cohort.

Some researchers noted that STDs may be more common in older people because they have a harder time dealing with infections and may be more susceptible to contracting them in the first place.

“The immune system is weaker, so you can get an infection easier, but there’s other physical things related to just sexual intimacy that make one more susceptible,” Ethan Morgan, an assistant professor of epidemiology at The Ohio State University College of Nursing, told NBC News in an article published this week on the STD rise among older adults in the United States.

A study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine noted the increase in STDs among older adults in recent years, claiming that older adults may not have received the same type of sex education that some teens now receive in public schools.

Some researchers say the older adults were educated before the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s, which sparked a number of state public school sex education programs at the time.

Syphilis on the Rise

The CDC earlier this year said that the U.S. syphilis epidemic isn’t abating, with total syphilis cases surpassing 207,000 in 2022, a 17 percent increase and the highest count in the United States since 1950. The count included not only the most infectious stages of the disease but also latent cases and those in which pregnant women passed syphilis on to their babies.

“Most cases of syphilis in the United States are among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM),” the CDC said in a fact sheet. “Syphilis also has increased nearly every year among MSM, for about two decades.”

Syphilis is a bacterial disease that can surface as painless sores but can ultimately lead to paralysis, hearing loss, dementia, and even death if left untreated. New syphilis infections plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when antibiotics became widely available and fell to their lowest by 1998.

Chlamydia cases were relatively flat from 2021 to 2022, staying at a rate of about 495 per 100,000, though there were declines noted in men and especially women in their early 20s. For gonorrhea, the most pronounced decline was seen in women in their early 20s as well, according to the CDC.

There were more than 2.5 million combined cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia reported across the U.S. in 2022, according to the agency’s data.

“In the United States, syphilis was close to elimination in the 1990s, so we know it’s possible to reverse this epidemic,” Jonathan Mermin, the director of CDC’s STD division, said in a statement earlier this year.

“That is going to require coordinated and sustained efforts at the federal, state, and local levels,” he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.