Public health department initiates art contest to help fight STDs

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health is holding a design contest for condoms to be distributed to battle the city’s sexual diseases, G Philly reports.

According to the news outlet, the condom art competition is intended to raise awareness of Philadelphia’s spiking STD rates.

The department’s STD Control Program currently distributes condoms at a number of sites city-wide, and says that the contest will promote safe sex.

Submissions to the competition will be accepted through November 28th.

In addition to providing free condoms and sexual education to the public, the program recommends online testing services as a good way to privately and definitively determine if individuals have an STD.

The DPH reports that rates of nearly every measured STD, including syphilis, chlamydia and HIV, have risen in Philadelphia over the past year.