Spread the Word About STDs

It’s not just your problem if you have a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Whether it’s HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia or herpes, your sex partners need to know, too, so they can be screened and treated if necessary. If you can’t bring yourself to notify them in person, www.inSPOT.org will do it for you, free of charge. The website, operated since 2004 by the San Francisco Department of Public Health in partnership with the nonprofit Internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS), delivers the news by e-card—anonymously if you prefer—with links to information about where and how to get tested and treated.

If you think this doesn’t apply to someone your age, think again. Older adults who are sexually active are as much at risk for STDs as younger people. Nearly 25 percent of Americans with HIV or AIDS are 50-plus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and women are especially at risk.

Since 2004, many city and state public health departments have teamed up with the inSPOT service, sending out more than 50,000 e-cards. Jeffrey Klausner, M.D., director of STD Prevention and Control Services in San Francisco, says the best way to notify partners “is face to face, of course, but we found that many people can’t do it. Sending cards makes it easy.”

Joan Rattner Heilman is a writer in Mamaroneck, N.Y.