Diseases that are spread through sexual contact are usually referred to as “sexually transmitted diseases”—STDs for short. In recent years, however, many experts in this area of public health have suggested replacing STD with a new term—sexually transmitted infection, or STI.

Why? The concept of “disease,” as in STD, implies a clear medical problem, usually some obvious signs or symptoms. But in truth several of the most common STDs have no signs or symptoms in the majority of persons infected. Or they have mild signs and symptoms that can be easily overlooked. So the sexually transmitted virus or bacteria can be described as creating “infection,” which may or may not result in “disease.” This is true of chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, and human papillomavirus (HPV), to name a few.

For this reason, in some of the published literature, the term “disease” is being replaced by “infection.” ASHA has used the term STD since 1988 and it appears in hundreds of published ASHA documents, including many of these Web pages. Users of this Web site will continue to see it for some time.

Moving forward, however, you will also begin to see increased use of the term STI. We’re interested in your thoughts about this as well (send any comments to mystory@ashastd.org).