在我们北边80英里的美国最大的也是发展最快的退休社区The Villages 有一个不好的名声:性病之都。
The capital of STD
The Villages 确实是非常大的退休社区,范围覆盖了比曼哈顿更大的区域,横跨佛罗里达州的三个县——Sumter、Marion和Lake。
这个话题实际上在媒体和社会上流传了很多年了,我是一直不了解这个情况,是前几年从我们公司做 GYN 病理的同事这里才知道的。
我的专业是皮肤病理,做GYN 病理的那几个同事有时候会收到女性外阴部皮肤的活检标本,如果她们碰到觉得吃不准有点难度的 cases 就会把切片拿到我办公室让我看一下,咨询我的病理诊断意见。有一次我说这个应该就是 condyloma (是 HPV 引起的外阴部性病,中文叫尖锐湿疣),然后这个同事就笑了一下,说这个标本是 The Villages 那边的,这个诊断不奇怪。我当时不太明白她的意思,她就跟我解释说那个地方的 STD 情况是有名的,她们 GYN 病理组收到的子宫颈涂片(Papsmear) 中有 HPV 引起的变化的比例相当高。我后来去网上查了一下,果然发现很多这方面的报道,包括有相当知名度的全国性大报。
但是也有不少文章是澄清这种说法,比如这篇文章里面说:
Is it true?Residents of The Villages are, of course, sexually active, said Dr. Marivic Villa, an internist who runs a health clinic in the retirement community.
Many of her patients come seeking testosterone therapy to improve their sex lives. All of them are tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
“In reality, I don’t see much STDs,” said Villa, who has worked in The Villages almost two decades. “Compared to other practitioners, I should. People just want to paint the picture that old people here are like young people in New Orleans.
“I’m not saying that they’re not thinking about having sex,” she added. “They do — a lot — but not to the point that there’s STDs left and right and all over the place.”
Compared to Florida overall, however, the three counties containing The Villages tended to have significantly lower (STD)rates.
Sumter County had one of the lowest rates of sexually transmitted diseases among older adults in 2019 —with about one in 10,000. That’s compared to six in 10,000 seniors statewide. Marion and Lake bore similar trends. The same patterns emerged for diagnoses of human immunodeficiency virus, also known as HIV, among Florida’s older adults.
At the county-by-county level, The Villages similarly fared better than most.
Spread of sexually transmitted diseases among older adults in Florida tended to be higher in counties with major cities and large Black and Latino populations, state data suggest, such as Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Broward counties. People of color, LGBTQ people and women experience disproportionately high rates of sexually transmitted diseases due to social determinants of health that are more likely to impact marginalized groups.
In The Villages, 86% of seniors are white, according to U.S. Census data. And the percentage of older adults living in poverty is slightly lower than the national rate, suggesting its retirees may have better access to health care than the country as a whole.
再看看另外一篇文章(2014年的)的大标题的翻译:
The Villages 拥有55岁以上的10万居民,可能是美国发展最快的城市。对于想要度过黄金岁月的婴儿潮一代来说,这是一个臭名昭著的繁荣小镇,他们可以享受上午11点的快乐时光、数千项活动和无拘无束的性爱,所有这些都被一个难以捉摸的亿万富翁所统治。