Who's Got Chlamydia in South Dakota?

The counties offering the safest sex in South Dakota are Campbell, Douglas, Hand, Hyde, Jones, and Sully. At least that's the conclusion you might derive from the chlamydia rates reported in the new County Health Rankings compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. (Either that, or it's just tough to find anyone to have sex with in those counties, clean or otherwise.)

Lake County is in the middle of the chlamydia pack, tying with Yankton County for 27th out of 66 counties for infection rates. Parents, pay attention: we're actually the lowest of the college towns. Clay, Brown, and Brookings all have higher chlamydia rates; Lawrence and Pennington counties each more than double our rates. At 179 cases per 100,000 (practically, think just under 2 cases per thousand), we're above the statewide median of 129 but below the average of 335.

Pulling the average higher: Corson, Todd, and Dewey counties, which all break 1,000, and South Dakota chlamydia champ Shannon County, which has an infection rate of 2,076 out of 100K. That's a 2% infection rate, compared to state and national averages of about 0.3%.

Chlamydia Rates in South Dakota, by County, 2006
Place	Cases	Population	Rates per 100,000	rank per 100K
Shannon	287	13,824	2,076	1
Dewey	114	6,112	1,865	2
Todd	124	10,088	1,229	3
Corson	52	4,288	1,213	4
Buffalo	17	2,109	806	5
Charles Mix	60	9,224	651	6
Roberts	52	10,024	519	7
Walworth	25	5,425	461	8
Ziebach	12	2,706	444	9
Pennington	413	94,338	438	10
Minnehaha	675	163,281	413	11
Jackson	11	2,900	379	12
Custer	28	7,944	353	13
Lawrence	79	22,685	348	14
Hughes	59	16,946	348	14
Mellette	7	2,099	334	16
Lyman	13	3,929	331	17
Davison	57	19,035	299	18
Clay	38	12,867	295	19
Beadle	44	15,643	281	20
Brown	96	34,645	277	21
Codington	68	26,347	258	22
Bennett	9	3,543	254	23
Brookings	56	28,195	199	24
Miner	5	2,553	196	25
Moody	12	6,644	181	26
Yankton	39	21,779	179	27
Lake	20	11,170	179	27
Stanley	5	2,815	178	29
Harding	2	1,205	166	30
Tripp	10	6,066	165	31
Brule	7	5,167	136	32
Potter	3	2,321	129	33
Faulk	3	2,339	128	34
Deuel	5	4,301	116	35
Jerauld	2	2,071	97	36
Fall River	7	7,304	96	37
Day	5	5,778	87	38
Meade	21	24,425	86	39
Butte	8	9,374	85	40
Hutchinson	6	7,426	81	41
Hanson	3	3,690	81	41
Gregory	3	4,268	70	43
Aurora	2	2,905	69	44
McCook	4	5,851	68	45
Marshall	3	4,430	68	45
Perkins	2	3,025	66	47
Bon Homme	4	7,281	55	48
Kingsbury	3	5,464	55	48
Haakon	1	1,864	54	50
Lincoln	18	35,239	51	51
Union	7	13,745	51	51
Edmunds	2	4,062	49	53
Spink	3	6,923	43	54
Sanborn	1	2,517	40	55
McPherson	1	2,565	39	56
Hamlin	2	5,616	36	57
Grant	2	7,278	28	58
Clark	1	3,683	27	59
Turner	2	8,540	23	60
Campbell	0	1,494	0	61
Douglas	0	3,168	0	61
Hand	0	3,323	0	61
Hyde	0	1,551	0	61
Jones	0	1,067	0	61
Sully	0	1,435	0	61
Total	2620	781,919	335

Stay tuned for more analysis of these county health numbers!