Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have increased exponentially in the past several years nationally and statewide. Yuba County as a small rural county in northern California has one of the highest rates of congenital syphilis with a crude rate of greater than 112.9 congenital syphilis cases per 100,000 live births. From 2017 to 2022, the rate of syphilis increased from 17 to 84.1 cases per 100,000.

In California, incarcerated individuals are among the individuals most impacted by STDs. This CHIP project aimed to implement an STDs opt-out testing program for all inmates coming into the Yuba County Jail – a facility with an average jail population in the 180s during the COVID-19 pandemic but is now back to its pre-pandemic level of mid-300s to low 400s. The STDs opt-out testing program was paired with public health staffing of part-time social workers and a nurse to provide social services linkages and medical/behavioral health linkages, respectively.

The planning and implementation of this CHIP project as a public health officer during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was extremely difficult. This was made more challenging when the proposal to contract with WellPath as the jail medical provider to provide the STDs opt-out testing and treatment was denied by the CA Department of Public Health (CDPH) because WellPath is a for-profit company. Through the project lead’s persistence in providing justification for why WellPath was chosen, CDPH ultimately approved the contract with WellPath and the project successfully started in September 2022.