469— Life or Death: Decision Making in Sexual Disease Treatment Matters

Syphilis is an STI that has recently made a resurgence in homosexual populations. When infected, a patient has two options: seek treatment immediately or do not seek treatment. I used a system of differential equations that includes susceptible, exposed, treatment receptive, treatment non-receptive, cured, and dead state variables in order to determine the relationships among transmission rate, treatment options, and death rate. My model suggests that an individual’s treatment option has a larger effect on death rate than the transmission rate inherent to the disease. The model also contains two sets of equilibria: an unstable trivial disease free condition and stable non-trivial equilibria in which the susceptible state converges on 0.063, exposed converges on 0.024, treatment receptive converges on 0.012, treatment non-receptive converges on 0.63, cured converges on 0.26, and dead converges on 0.012. My results indicate that education about treatment options may reduce the burden of syphilis in the population.