{"id":4116,"date":"2018-02-07T09:15:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T14:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nchstats.com\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2018-02-07T09:15:57","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T14:15:57","slug":"prevalence-of-herpes-simplex-virus-type-1-and-type-2-in-persons-aged-14-49-united-states-2015-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/2018\/02\/07\/4116\/","title":{"rendered":"Prevalence of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 and Type 2 in Persons Aged 14-49: United States, 2015\u20132016"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Geraldine McQuillan, Ph.D., Infectious Disease Epidemiologist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Questions for Geraldine McQuillan, Ph.D., Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Lead Author of \u201cPrevalence of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 and Type 2 in Persons Aged 14-49: United States, 2015\u20132016<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Q:<\/em><\/strong> In the first bullet in the key findings section of your new report, 47.8% is listed for 2015-2016 herpes simplex type 1 prevalence and 11.9% is listed for type 2. Yet in the last bullet there, it reads that prevalence is 48.1% and 12.1%. Why are these estimates different?<\/p>\n

GM:<\/em><\/strong> This report offers two statistical estimates \u2013 a crude rate, or \u201creal\u201d prevalence estimate, and an age-adjusted one. If you look at the data table for Figure 1, you can see that the unadjusted prevalence — or the true prevalence for herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) — is 47.8% in the U.S population. In order to compare across subgroups that have differing age distributions, we need to age-adjust the data to allow for a more accurate comparison among groups. The age-adjusted prevalence for the total population is 48.1%. Crude rates are influenced by the underlying age distribution of a population, and age-adjusting the rates assures that differences are not due to the age distribution of the populations being compared.<\/p>\n

\n

Q:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 What made you decide to focus on the prevalence of the herpes simplex virus for the subject of your new report?<\/p>\n

GQ<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> Our main motivation for conducting this study is to offer a current assessment of herpes prevalence in the United States. Though we have included HSV-1 and -2 testing in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) since 1999, we have not looked at the data since 2010 (Bradley et al. Seroprevalence of herpes simplex virus type 1 and 2 \u2013 United States, 1999-2010. JID 2014:209; 325-333). With the addition of six more years of data and a sufficient amount of years to look at trends over time, we decided it was time to re-look at the prevalence of these common viruses in the United States.<\/p>\n

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Q:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Was there a result in your study that you had not expected and that really surprised you?<\/p>\n

GQ<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> The decline in herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) across all race and ethnic groups was quite striking. The linear decline in prevalence was seen in the previous study for HSV-1 that used data from 1999-2010. There was no decline with the prevalence of HSV-2 at that time. With the addition of six more years of data, we now also see a linear downward trend for HSV-2 and again for HSV-1. We did not expect to see the decline of HSV-2 in all race and ethnic subgroups.<\/p>\n

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Q:<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0What differences or similarities did you see among race and ethnic groups, and various demographics, in this analysis?<\/p>\n

GQ:<\/em><\/strong> The difference by race and ethnic subgroups in herpes simplex virus prevalence did not differ from previous reports even with the declines in prevalence in both viruses. Mexican-Americans still have the highest prevalence of HSV-1, and non-Hispanic whites have the lowest. The prevalence of HSV-2 is highest in the non-Hispanic black population and lowest in the non-Hispanic Asian population. Non-Hispanic whites and Mexican- Americans have a similar prevalence. All these race\/ethnic differences have been seen in many of our infectious diseases especially those that are transmitted sexually.<\/p>\n

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Q:<\/em><\/strong> What is the take-home message of this report?<\/p>\n

GQ: <\/em><\/strong>This is a good news data report. I think its take-home message is that two of our most prevalent viruses, HSV-1 and HSV-2, are steadily declining in the U.S population. Though NHANES provides prevalence estimates (new and old infections), once a person is infected with a herpes virus they are infected for life. The only way we see a decline is if there is a drop in new infections or a decrease in the incidence of both HSV-1 and HSV-2. While this report is a presentation of data findings, and did not go into an analysis of risk factors to determine why we are seeing this decline, other industrialized countries have observed declines in HSV-1 during the past two decades. Improvements in living conditions, better hygiene and less crowding likely explain these declines. Other countries who also have seen a decline in HSV-2 in their populations, suggest that the increase in safe-sex practices in the post-AIDS pandemic may contribute to the decline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Questions for Geraldine McQuillan, Ph.D., Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Lead Author of \u201cPrevalence of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 and Type 2 in Persons Aged 14-49: United States, 2015\u20132016\u201d Q: In the first bullet in the key findings section of your new report, 47.8% is listed for 2015-2016 herpes simplex type 1 prevalence and 11.9%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50899,63748],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}