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HeathDay News — Transgender individuals with certain characteristics, including a history of incarceration and self-referral, have more HIV tests, according to a short report published in Transgender Health.
Adrian Juarez-Cuellar, PhD, and Yu-Ping Chang, PhD, both from the University at Buffalo in New York, assessed HIV testing in 27 urban, transgender individuals in western New York using HIV testing intake data from a sample of self-identified transgender males and females volunteering for an HIV test at a community-based health care organization.
The researchers found that transgender individuals with the following characteristics had more HIV tests: female gender, black, sex worker, self-referring, positive HIV status, or a history of incarceration. In addition, those who had a permanent housing/rental situation or lived with friends or family had a higher number of HIV tests.
“Our findings confirm that HIV testing can be increased by using self-perceived risk as a potentialcorrelate for HIV testing. In addition, we found that targeted testing is successful and should be context specific,” write the authors.
Reference
Adrian JC, Yu-Ping C. HIV testing in urban transgender individuals: a descriptive study. Transgender Health. 2(1):151-155.
