Population movement can sustain STI prevalence in remote Australian indigenous communities.

ABSTRACT:

Background

For almost two decades, chlamydia and gonorrhoea diagnosis rates in remote Indigenous communities have been up to 30 times higher than for non-Indigenous Australians. The high levels of population movement known to occur between remote communities may contribute to these high rates.

Methods

We developed an individual-based computer simulation model to study the relationship between population movement and the persistence of gonorrhoea and chlamydia transmission within hypothetical remote communities.

Results

Results from our model suggest that short-term population movement can facilitate gonorrhoea and chlamydia persistence in small populations. By fixing the number of short-term travellers in accordance with census data, we found that these STIs can persi

SUBMITTER: Hui BB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3641953 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature