‘White other’ gay men, as well as men living in London, with higher education, and men in their thirties and forties, were more likely to have had sex with a known HIV-positive man, and Asian men were less likely to have had sex with a known HIV-positive man.
Of the 94.6% of respondents who were not HIV-positive, and who had sex with a male partner in the previous year, 9.6% had some kind of sexual contact with a man they knew to be HIV-positive. After adjusting for recruitment method and demographic differences, black men (of whom 11.6% were HIV-positive) were 2.26 times more likely and Asian men (of whom 1.5% were HIV-positive) 0.32 times as likely to be living with HIV than white British men, of whom 8.2% were living with HIV. HIV prevalenceĪlmost ten percent (705/7147) of the men who had ever taken an HIV antibody test had received a positive result. After adjusting for recruitment method, residence, age and education, compared with white British men, the ‘white other’ group were 1.83 times more likely, black men 1.54 times more likely, and Asian men 0.71 times as likely to have ever tested for HIV. Overall, almost 55% of respondents had ever taken the HIV antibody test. Within the black group, men with mixed ethnicities predominated, with African and Caribbean men less well represented. Men with mixed Asian-white ethnicity were also overrepresented. Of a total of 17,205 respondants, 13,369 predominantly gay men (only 7% had ever also had sex with a woman) living in England, were included in this analysis.Ĭompared to the UK population of gay men based on 2001 census data, white British men and Asian men were underrepresented in this survey, and ‘white other ‘and ‘all others’ were overrepresented. This survey used three distinct but complementary methods of distribution - a questionnaire at seven UK Pride events, a survey booklet sent to 185 HIV health promotion agencies, and an online survey promoted via uk.gay.com - in order to ascertain information regarding sexual behaviour, HIV risk-taking, testing and serostatus, and various other demographic data. In order to ascertain ethnic group differences in demographics, HIV testing and sexual HIV risk behaviour, investigators from the UK’s Sigma Research analysed data from the fifth Gay Men’s Sex Survey, which took place over the summer of 2001. UK gay men of black Caribbean and African ethnicity are more than twice as likely, and gay men of Asian ethnicity are three-times less likely, as gay white British men to be HIV-positive, and these differences can at least be partially explained by differences in sexual HIV risk behaviour, according to a paper based on the fifth national ‘Gay Men’s Sex Survey’, recently published online in the journal of Sexually Transmitted Infections.