Recruitment Letter - New Participant

May 21, 2018
Dear Colleague,
The Division of STD Prevention for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), together with the National Association of County and City Health Officials
(NACCHO) and NORC at the University of Chicago, are reaching out to you to request
your participation in an important study of STD clinic users. This survey was first
conducted in 2013, and the 2013 data have been invaluable to CDC, NACCHO, and other
stakeholders to aid in optimizing the role of STD clinics in STD prevention, developing
STD clinical service guidelines, allocating STD Prevention resources and assessing
policies related to access to STD clinical services. The 2013 study was conducted as an
in-person survey of STD clinic users in 21 sites and we plan to replicate this survey in the
original 21 locations in addition to a number of newly added locations to increase the
reach of the sample. Our goal is to assess the current demographics and needs of
patients seeking services at STD clinics, and to also analyze changes in client
demographics and needs since 2013. In order to minimize disruption to your clinic,
NORC field staff will follow the same protocol that was used in 2013 and administer a
paper-based, 10-minute survey on site to a consecutive sample of 100 men and 100
women seeking services for a new problem or STD screening at the STD clinic while
they are in the waiting room before seeing the clinician. A copy of the 2018 Clinic
Survey is attached for your review. As we did with the 2013 survey, we will provide
summary tables of each clinic’s data upon request and will assist in any additional
analyses and tabulations of those data and technical assistance that you may find useful to
improve the quality of STD clinical services provided to meet current clients’ needs.
The 2018 STD Clinic Survey has an additional component. This component involves the
NORC field staff interviewing a clinic manager for about 10 minutes and assessing
clinical services and billing systems using an in-person survey of 15 questions. This
component will assess issues of clinic capacity, services including on-site diagnostic and
treatments available, as well as the ability to bill different types of insurance. These
interview questions are attached for your review and the interview can be done at any
point during client data collection either during or outside clinic hours. NACCHO and
NORC staff will coordinate with you directly in order to minimize disruption in your
clinic for both the clinic user data collection and the clinic manager portion of the project.
We have received approval from NORC’s IRB and are in the process of obtaining
required federal approvals to conduct the clinic user survey and the administrator survey.
We expect to field it in the coming months. As we await these approvals, we would like
to schedule a call to discuss the project and your site’s participation in the study.
NACCHO and NORC will reach out within two weeks to identify dates for that call; in
the interim, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns regarding your

clinic’s participation in this 2018 study. Note that we will also work with you to secure
IRB or other necessary approvals to collect data in your clinics, which was required for a
few sites in the 2013 study.
If you have any questions regarding this survey, please contact:
NORC at the University of Chicago
Phone: 1-877-898-5903
Email: STDClinic@norc.org
We appreciate the work you do every day to stem the tide of rising STDs in the United
States and hope you can participate in this critical survey and assessment. We will use
the data in 2018 as we did in 2013 to inform local and national efforts to optimize the role
of STD clinics in STD prevention efforts and allocate STD Prevention resources.
Sincerely,

Gail Bolan, MD
Director, Division of STD Prevention
National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention