Notes From the Field.

This section provides information on models for partnerships between public health and community organizations to increase health services to populations at risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Persons at risk for STD face barriers in gaining access to health services, including limited understanding of the structure of the services, lack of insurance and distrust of providers. The Denver Gonorrhea Community Action Project (GCAP), administered by the Denver Department of Public Health, has formed a partnership with a community organization serving homeless youths that provides limited health services supervised by volunteer physicians. Other partners included a state-funded juvenile detention facility and a county jail, both with in-house nurse practitioners. Meanwhile, the Saint Louis GCAP, administered by the Division of Infectious Diseases of the Washington University School of Medicine, implemented regular screenings at 20 community organizations. In many cases, GCAP staff formed partnerships with local AIDS organizations and the Saint Louis Department of Health to offer ligase chain reaction screening and STD education in addition to HIV screening and educational efforts already ongoing in these sites. Finally, a third model is one in which staff at community organizations and establishments had no clinical skills but were interested in conducting screening and becoming a resource for STD prevention. In Denver, staff at an after-hours club, a place for youth to hang out in a safe environment, were interested in offering regular screenings.