This led the CDC to start a prevention education program targeted at people age 15-30 living in urban areas. This has led us to the lowest rates for syphilis in forty years. Epidemiologists are essential in tracking a disease and determining who is at risk. Programs must be specific to the group of people most at risk. Without the efforts of the CDC and local public health programs, syphilis would be unlikely to be so under control today.
Most people now consider prevention to be just as vital to public health as finding a cure.
Public health education measures seem to be extremely effective when dealing with syphilis. We can see this by the drop in the rates of new cases when the CDC makes a push for education. Today, the CDC puts 106 million dollars into controlling STD's every year with their prevention education. In 1996, according to the CDC, there were 4.4 new cases of syphilis for every 100,000 people. This is the lowest it has been since the drop in 1956-1957.