SAN DIEGO, CA — San Diego often appears on lists of the best cities in California or throughout the entire Western U.S. But the San Diego metro area has made the top of a list for a very unfortunate reason: A new study has found that chlamydia is more prevalent in the San Diego metro area than in any other major city in the West.

The study by At Home STD Kit.com found that residents of the San Diego metro area, which covers all of San Diego County and includes cities like Carlsbad, Chula Vista and Oceanside, were diagnosed with chlamydia at a rate of 656.5 per 100,000 in 2018. That's the highest rate recorded for any major California metro area, and it's the highest chlamydia rate among all major Western cities, including Las Vegas, Denver and Portland.

Nationally, rates of three common sexually transmitted diseases — chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis — have been on the rise, and the At Home STD Kit study analyzed the most recent data published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which covers a five-year period between 2014 and 2018 for each state and the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S.