Increasing demand for health professionals with training in ambulatory and primary care practice is placing stress on existing training site capacity. Community health centers can serve as model training sites, offering comprehensive multidisciplinary health care services and teaching clinician role models. In this study, 32 Illinois community and migrant health centers and federally qualified health centers were surveyed to assess their involvement with training in the past three years. Thirty centers had offered training to students from many disciplines, with nursing (27 centers) and medicine (24) the most frequent. Most centers had established formal relationships with training institutions but generally had limited involvement with course planning. Continued participation will likely require adequate funding, with some centers also seeking stronger institutional relationships and better integration of community health issues. Educators and policy makers may need to take a more active role in supporting centers, acquiring funds, and other enabling factors.

Background Information on the potential impact of the presence of an STD and/or family planning (FP) clinic on STD surveillance and control is scant. In the study, we examine the impact of STD and/or publicly funded Title V, X, and XX FP clinics on county-level surveillance and control of three reportable STDs (chlamydia (CT), gonorrhoea (GC) and primary and secondary syphilis (P&S)) in Texas during 2000 and 2007. Specifically, we examined the following two questions: (1) Are the counties with STD/FP clinics reporting relatively more cases of STDs? (2) Does having STD service(s) (the presence of an STD/FP clinic) in a county matter? Methods We used spatial regression to analyse the impact of STD/ FP clinics on county-level STD morbidity using surveillance data on CT, GC, and P&S. the impact of STD/FP clinics on STD control was examined using a backward stepwise regression on the changes in À0.04 (CI 0.01 to À0.09, p<0.10) for CT; À0.08 (CI À0.02 to À0.14, p<0.01) for GC and À0.09 (CI À0.03 to À0.15, p<0.01) for P&S. Thus, the transformed incidence rates of GC and P&S reduced by 8% and 9%, respectively, between 2000 and 2007 for those counties that had at least one STD/FP clinic. Conclusion The results from this ecological study are consistent with (but do not establish) a causal relationship between having an STD/FP clinic and improved surveillance and/or reduction in STDs at the county-level in Texas. However, the results suggest that STD/ FP clinics play an important role in STD surveillance and control. Finer level analyses (such as census block or cities) may be able to establish a strong causal relationship. Issue Almost all the patients who presents to the hospital with symptoms and/or signs of sexually transmitted infection have been engaged with unprotected sexual intercourse, thus they are predispose to contacting STI including HIV and complications. STIs can increase the risk of HIV acquisition and transmission by a factor of up to 10. The WHO estimates that more than three million new curable STI infections occur annually among people aged 15e49 worldwide. In 1995, over half of female patients seeking treatment for a sexually transmitted infection (STI) tested in 13 states were HIV positive. Among STI patients in 10 states, in 2000, HIV prevalence increased by age, the lowest rate was ages 10e19, and the highest among those ages 50+. Akwa Ibom State has one of the highest rates among selected states for 2000 with 21% of STI patients tested HIV positive In 2008, Akwa Ibom and Cross River States had the highest rate of HIV infection in the South South Zone at 9.7% and 6% respectively. The health seeking behaviour of the poor at public health facilities is influenced by cost, the fear that services are not going to be confidential and the fear of meeting people they know at the healthcare facility. Thus this sexual risky population often do not always access care, thus contributing to the underserved most at risk population in the community. Method ECEWS implemented Condom and Other Prevention using the ...