Herpes simplex virus type 2 seropositivity and relationship status among U.S. adults age 20 to 49: a population-based analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: U.S. population studies show herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) seroprevalence levelling by approximately age 30, suggesting few new infections after that age. It is unclear whether this pattern is driven by greater percentages in stable relationships, and to what extent adults who initiate new relationships may be at risk of incident HSV-2 infection. METHODS: Survey and laboratory data from the 1999-2008 waves of the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were combined for 12,862 adults age 20-49. Weighted population estimates of self-reported genital herpes, HSV-2 seroprevalence, and past-year sexual history were calculated, stratified by age, sex, race, and relationship status. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess whether relationship status provided additional information in predicting HSV-2 over age, race and sex, and whether any such associations could be accounted for through differences in lifetime number of sex partners. RESULTS: Those who were unpartnered had higher HSV-2 prevalence than those who were married/cohabitating. Among unpartnered 45-49 year olds, seroprevalence was 55.3% in women and 25.7% in men. Those who were married/cohabitating were more likely to have had a past-year sex partner, and less likely to have had two or more partners. The effect of age in increasing the odds of HSV-2 was modified by race, with higher HSV-2 prevalence among Black Americans established by age 20-24 years, and the effect of race decreasing from age 30 to 49. Relationship status remained an independent predictor of HSV-2 when controlling for age, race, and sex among those age 30 to 49; married/cohabitating status was protective for HSV-2 in this group (OR = 0.69) CONCLUSIONS: Whereas sexually transmitted infections are often perceived as issues for young adults and specific high-risk groups, the chronic nature of HSV-2 results in accumulation of prevalence with age, especially among those not in married/cohabitating relationships. Increased odds of HSV-2 with age did not correspond with increases in self-reported genital herpes, which remained low. Adults who initiate new relationships should be aware of HSV-2 in order to better recognize its symptoms and prevent transmission.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".