RICHMOND, Va. — The Richmond restaurant scene has helped bring a lot of good press to town recently as publications have named Richmond a top Southern tourist destination. But a new survey lists Richmond among the top cities for a less fortunate reason. Richmond ranks as the seventh most Sexually Diseased Cities, according to RentApplication.com.
The data used here comes from the CDC for 2013, and reflects reports of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. (Herpes data is not collected). To normalize the data, we measured rates per 100,000 people. We chose only to show cities with a significant amount of population, so rural counties are not show on this map.
Specifically, we only rankied cities with a population of at least 50,000 or more. We ignored absolute STDs and only used the rate per 100k to establish rankings. We opted to treat Washington, DC. as a city and not a state. We also chose to represent each borough of NYC separately. They represent very different populations and should be treated as such.
The CDC makes available a wide range of statistical, anonymous data about STDs in America.
Despite its high ranking, Richmond was not the top Sexually Diseased city in Virginia. That dubious distinction belong to Norfolk, which ranked fifth. Virginia Beach came in at number 20, Hampton was ranked 32nd and Newport News 37th.
The survey noted that the military helped cities rank strongly in the top 10, with Naval Station Norfolk, Ft. Hood, and Ft. Bragg all pushing their cities to the top.