INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR PERSPECTIVE Sexual Health and Sexually Transmitted Infections in the North American Arctic

• Main Authors: Dionne Gesink Law, Elizabeth Rink, Gert Mulvad, Anders Koch
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Greenland; International Polar Year; inuit; Metis; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.306.3962; http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/1/pdfs/07-1112.pdf

Our objective was to describe the basic epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections for Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of North America. We summarized published and unpublished rates of chlamydial infection and gonorrhea reported from 2003 through 2006 for Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. In 2006, Alaska reported high rates of chlamydial infection (715 cases/100,000 population) compared with the United States as a whole; northern Canada reported high rates of chlamydial infection (1,693 cases/100,000) and gonorrhea (247 cases/100,000) compared with southern Canada; and Greenland consistently reported the highest rates of chlamydial infection (5,543 cases/100,000) and gonorrhea (1,738 cases/100,000) in the Arctic. Rates were high for both men and women, although the highest incidence of infection was predominantly reported for young women in their early twenties. We propose that communitybased participatory research is an appropriate approach to improve sexual health in Arctic communities. Four million people live in the Arctic (1), yet little is known about sexual health and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the circumpolar North. Arctic communities in North America comprise a large proportion of Native American, First Nation, Metis, Inuit, and other aboriginal peoples living in harsh climates, diverse landscapes, and a variety of community structures including urban, micropolitan, reserves or reservations, towns, villages, settlements, and remote fly-in communities. Access to healthcare varies by community and country and patient concerns about the preservation of confidentiality remain a barrier to accessing healthcare.