Montgomery, Ala., has more cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia than large U.S. cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Orleans, according to a report released today from a renter’s website.
RentApplication.com compiled statistics on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) using 2013 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and ranked the Southern city as the most sexually diseased city in the country.
According to the Montgomery Advertiser, the website calculated rates per 100,000 people to normalize the data. It also excluded rural parts of the country, evaluating only cities with substantial populations.
The 2013 CDC data revealed that Montgomery had 4,371 reported cases of STDs and a total 1,899.20 diseases per 100,000 people. The city has a population of 201,332, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“It’s pretty sobering to look at those three as a total,” Tom Miller, chief medical officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, told the Montgomery Advertiser. “When we check numbers and try to get to the same point as was reported in this (ranking), we think the numbers are in the ballpark in terms of the numbers cited for Montgomery.”
In the report, St. Louis had the second highest number of reported STDs in the nation with 1,867.54 reported cases per 100,000, and West Memphis, Arkansas, had the third highest number of reported cases with 1,717.20 per 100,000. West Memphis has a population of 25,545, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
Southern cities such as New Orleans; Killeen, Texas; and Fayetteville, North Carolina also made the top 10 portion of the list. Two of those cities—Killeen and Fayetteville—have large military populations, with Fort Hood and Fort Bragg, respectively. Also in the top 10 is the Norfolk, Virginia, which is home to the Norfolk Naval Base.
Miller told the Montgomery Advertiser that he wasn’t aware of another time Montgomery received a No. 1 ranking for most STDs in the U.S., but that he thought the higher rates were due to visitors as well as residents in the city.
“It’s difficult to quantify how much is contributed by specific groups,” he told the newspaper.
Here are the top 10 most sexually diseased U.S. cities, according to RentApplication.com:
(City, total STDs per 100,000)
1. Montgomery: 1,899.20
2. St. Louis, Missouri: 1,867.54
3. West Memphis, Arkansas: 1,717.29
4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 1,689.77
5. Norfolk, Virginia (Norfolk Naval Base): 1,632.74
6. Baltimore, Maryland: 1,630.98
7. Richmond, Virginia: 1,544.39
8. New Orleans, Louisiana: 1,520.37
9. Killeen, Texas (Fort Hood): 1,512.83
10. Fayetteville, North Carolina (Fort Bragg): 1,489.20
