TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Bakersfield resident Frank Tamayo has downloaded a smartphone application called Grindr that tells him if nearby gay, bisexual or curious men are interested in hanging out.

The free app will show pictures of men who are, say, 500 feet away, athletic and interested in dinner or a movie.

"I just turn it on, say 'You're cute' and go on from there," 33-year-old Tamayo said.

It's part of an increasing trend of men seeking friends, a date or intimacy with other men via phone apps such as Grindr, which has more than 2 million users worldwide and 7,000 in the greater Bakersfield area.

While Tamayo sees it as a great opportunity to meet new people, public health officials fear it's a factor in the more than doubling of reported syphilis cases in Kern County this year.

At the same time, the app's anonymity is making it harder to track people who may have been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease.

"It's easier to be anonymous, and it's more accessible," said Denise Smith, director of disease control at the Kern County Department of Public Health. "You can find so many people within a certain radius."

If patients at the health department's clinics test positive for STDs, nurses and counselors discreetly will try to contact their recent sexual partners. In the past several years, patients increasingly reported meeting sexual partners on websites, said Alira Medel, a disease intervention specialist.

Instead of offering phone numbers, emails or even personal descriptions of past partners, more and more patients give health workers a list of website user names, such as "sugardaddy" or "sweetdreams."

A state health investigator based at the Kern County Public Health building on Mount Vernon Avenue surfs those sites with a computer that isn't linked to the county network.

He sends a private message to the people with the user names encouraging them to contact Public Health. He tells those who respond about the exposure and encourages them to be tested.

Oftentimes the outreach is successful. In one example, the investigator went on Adam4Adam.com and messaged an infected patient's 47 recent partners. Most of the dozen partners who agreed to be tested were positive for the infection, Medel said.

In the past several months, health officials have started hearing more and more about patients using Grindr, which launched in 2009. But their outreach technique is struggling with Grindr since many users rely on the GPS mapping and instant messaging to meet partners, without exchanging more specific contact details.

Grindr publicity manager Justin Howard said users can track down people they've met if they "star" them during initial contact. The person will show up on their chat list, even if they're no longer in the same zip code.

As a policy, Grindr bans users from mentioning they're looking for unprotected intimate activity, and will remove profiles of those who violate that regulation. The Grindr team promotes safe sex in messages that appear when users log in, Howard said. Occasionally, they'll also list nearby clinics where users can get tested.

"We try to educate and inform in a fun and engaging way," he said. "We try to spell it out as plain as we can to encourage safe behavior, and they can choose to read more or close it."

So far this year, the Public Health Department has reported 48 cases of syphilis in Kern County, more than double the number for the same period in 2010. This year's figures already have exceeded last year's total of 32, and are well above the 2009 total of 24.

In the United States, about 64 percent of the reported syphilis cases in 2006 involved men having sex with men, according to the most recent figures available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2009, all but one of the total reported syphilis cases in Kern County were men, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Syphilis, a bacterial infection treatable with antibiotics, can heighten a patient's risk for contacting other STDs, such as HIV. If left untreated, the late stages of the disease can damage internal organs, and lead to gradual blindness, dementia or even death.

The county department's figures for gonorrhea and chlamydia are on track to be about the same as last year. Kern County ranks worst in the state for reported chlamydia cases and near the worst for gonorrhea. Health officials say it's unclear why Kern County's STD figures are so high.

Dennis Hendrix, prevention education manager for the Community Action Partnership of Kern, pointed to a lack of awareness of how some STDs are transmitted. Syphilis can be spread by skin-to-skin contact with an infected area, or though oral sex.

There can also be false judgments about whether someone is "clean" based on their appearance or socio-economic status, he said. And, too often, STDs are taboo to discuss.

"There is such a stigma about STDs that people don't share information," Hendrix said. "They don't know the reality of how many people are infected."

Juan Garcia, the HIV program director at Clinica Sierra Vista, said higher rates of some STDs could also be tied to decreasing funding sources for teen pregnancy and HIV prevention and outreach. In younger groups, the increased social media could be broadening networks, intermingling groups who might not otherwise meet, he said.

Laurie Davis, the founder of online dating consultancy eFlirt Expert, says she'd hesitate to connect mobile apps and unsafe sex. Apps like Grindr simply offer different avenues for meeting people, and behaviors online often mimic off-line interaction, she said.

"If you're going to go to a bar at 1 a.m. on a Saturday, or if you're using Grindr at 1 a.m. on a Saturday, it's the same," she said. "But you can also use it at 1 p.m. to meet someone for coffee, just like you would meet someone at the coffee shop."

Still, the use of such apps might be filling a niche in Kern County, where it's harder for men to meet other men, especially if they're looking to stay under the radar, health officials say.

"In L.A., there are a lot of places to go because it's a big area, and it's easier to hide," Hendrix said. "Here, if you go to a bar, there's more of a chance that people could see you."

In the county health department's clinics, workers say they've seen male STD patients who are married to women but use the new technology to meet men.

Smith, the county disease control director, points to figures that show just 38 percent of people in Kern County with HIV or AIDS said they were men having sex with men -- compared to 66.6 percent statewide.

"We're not sure, but it's most likely the men are underreporting that they're having sex with men," Smith said.

There's one thing everyone can agree on: Technology is changing the way social networks -- and the diseases that may accompany them -- form and spread.

"Technology is expanding and changing as we sit here," Medel said. "People will always find new ways to meet people."

For Tamayo, the Grindr user, that's a good thing.

"I'm drawn to the apps because my friends are on there, and it's easier for us to meet when we're in a different state for dates or going-out buddies," he said. "It's just more convenient."