Characteristics of Sexual Partnerships Among Men With Diagnosed HIV Who Have Sex With Men, United States and Puerto Rico—2015–2019

Details

• Alternative Title:
  J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr
• Personal Author:
  Dasgupta, Sharoda ; Tie, Yunfeng ; Bradley, Heather ; Beer, Linda ; Rosenberg, Eli S. ; Holtgrave, David ; Fagan, Jennifer ; Green, Shana ; Shouse, Roy L.
• Description:
  Background:
  
  Understanding sexual partnerships of HIV-positive persons, particularly at the dyad level, can help in quantifying HIV transmission risk. We described sexual partnerships among HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM), including partnerships with a high risk for sexual HIV transmission.
  
  Setting:
  
  The Medical Monitoring Project is an annual, cross-sectional study that reports representative estimates on U.S. HIV-positive adults.
  
  Methods:
  
  During 2015–2019, we assessed sexual behaviors by interview, and viral load results from medical records. Among sexually active HIV-positive MSM (n = 4923), we described prevalence of high-risk sex, defined as: (1) not having sustained viral suppression, and (2) having condomless sex with an HIV-negative partner not known to be taking pre-exposure prophylaxis or an HIV-unknown partner. We described sexual partnerships among HIV-positive MSM (n = 13,024 partnerships among 4923 MSM). For HIV-discordant partnerships (n = 7768), we reported the proportion involved in high-risk sex, and associations with high-risk sex using prevalence ratios with predicted marginal means, controlling for age of the HIV-positive partner (P < 0.05).
  
  Results:
  
  More than half (66%) of sexually active HIV-positive MSM had condomless sex; 11% had high-risk sex. Blacks were more likely to have detectable viral loads, but less likely to have condomless sex, making prevalence of high-risk sex comparable between racial/ethnic groups. Dyad-level analyses among HIV-discordant partnerships indicated that prevalence of high-risk sex was higher among partnerships with HIV-positive white MSM, which was not observed using person-level data alone.
  
  Conclusions:
  
  In the context of ending the HIV epidemic, behavioral and clinical surveillance data can help monitor HIV transmission risk and target prevention efforts to reduce transmission among populations at disproportionate risk.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Cross-Sectional Studies HIV-1 HIV Infections Homosexuality, Male Humans Male Sexual Partners Viral Load
• Source:
  J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 84(5):443-452
• Pubmed ID:
  32692102
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8591528
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Place as Subject:
  Puerto Rico ; United States
• Volume:
  84
• Issue:
  5
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:3fd1d584bb914daf1976f9471cc6c210bff06562c9107e103a9e262a3e7b7106
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/111717/cdc_111717_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 693.17 KB ]