Gender and race as correlates of high risk sex behaviors among injection drug users at risk for HIV enrolled in the HPTN 037 study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Sexual contact has been shown to be a major mode of HIV transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID). This study examined gender and racial differences among PWID' sexual risk behaviors from the perspective of sexual scripts. METHODS: 696 PWID enrolled from Philadelphia on HPTN 037 were classified as engaging in high-risk sex behaviors if they reported having sex in the past 30 days and condomless sex with a non-primary partner, giving/receiving sex for money, or multiple partners. A multivariable logistic regression model was used to assess associations between demographic factors and high risk sex. RESULTS: Findings of the multivariable regression analysis demonstrated that being White (OR = 0.52, p