Incident syphilis among women with multiple admissions to jail in New YorkCity

Although early syphilis morbidity in New York City (NYC) has declined to a record low, syphilis seroreactivity among women jailed in NYC is similar to 25%. By use of a retrospective cohort-type analysis of longitudinal serolo gic and treatment data collected at the time of each incarceration, the inc idence of syphilis infection among 3579 susceptible women jailed multiple t imes in NYC between 23 March 1993 and 10 April 1997 was estimated. Syphilis incidence densities were estimated by use of continuous, time-homogeneous Markov models. There was a total of 289 incident infections. The overall in cidence density was 6.5 infections per 100 woman-years (95% confidence inte rval, 5.7-7.2), which exceeds the 1997 early syphilis rate among women in N YC by >1000-fold. The persisting high incidence of syphilis in this populat ion underscores the importance of aggressive syphilis control in correction al settings, even in the face of declining local early syphilis rates.