Swipe right for STDs: Doctors say hookup apps increase infection rates

Utah has a problem, and nobody wants to talk about it.
Thanks, in part, to a growing use of “hookup” apps, doctors say they have seen rates of sexually transmitted diseases skyrocket over the past couple years.

Apps like Tinder, Down and Grindr could be partly responsible for gonorrhea rates in Utah being up in women more than 700 percent, they use as an example.

The numbers don’t lie, and gonorrhea rates jumped nearly 400 percent from 2011-2014. Men have seen a 300 percent increase, while rates among women have surged an incredible 714 percent.

Joel Hartsell of the Utah State Health Department is working with his team to figure out why. They’re using new questionnaires for people who test positive for STDs, for example, but that is only a piece of the puzzle.

Utah schools teach abstinence only, and that education, translates to what adults know when it comes to sex. Beltran doesn’t have a tough time talking STDs because it’s her job, but for others, the topic is tough to tackle. She believes a conversation needs to be started.

The reality of STDs is a tough sell. Everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, what Beltran wants people to know is that the risk is in the city, in suburban neighborhoods and rural Utah. It’s single people, married people and everyone in between.

In a state that doesn’t like to talk about sex, there seems to be a whole lot of it going on without much forethought of protection. Hudson believes that could be due to a choice saying, “If you put on a condom and go to that length, you are admitting you were actively cheating on your spouse or your partner. If you don’t put on the condom, it can be a mistake or lived in a bit of denial.”

Hartsell doesn’t dance around the issue adding, “These people who are stepping out are putting their spouses at risk.” If a man for example brings home chlamydia to his wife, she won’t necessarily see symptoms. Left untreated it can cause infertility.

That’s why Beltran has the ugly job of notifying unsuspecting spouses and partners of positive STD tests. That she says is the most challenging part of her job. “I have had to make calls to spouses of people exposed to HIV,” she says.

The state is now rushing to stop this alarming trend by bumping up its annual conference scheduled for the fall and meeting with doctors from across the state in mid-May to brainstorm solutions.

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