HIV PrEP awareness low among cisgender women, especially women of color
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
PrEP awareness and use among cisgender women in the United States remains low, especially among women of color, according to data presented at the Women in Medicine Summit virtual meeting.
“HIV prevention efforts in the U.S. have mostly focused on men, given that they are disproportionately impacted by HIV. However, women still account for almost one-fifth of new infections, so there need to be more efforts to include women in the narrative surrounding HIV prevention,” Genoviva Sowemimo-Coker, MPH, a senior research assistant in the department of medicine at Brown University, told Healio.
“African American and Hispanic/Latina women are disproportionately affected among new HIV infections in women, so it's also important that we tailor future studies and discourse specifically toward this demographic,” Sowemimo-Coker said.
For their study, Sowemimo-Coker and colleagues reviewed demographic and behavioral data on cisgender women who presented at a Rhode Island STI clinic between 2017 and 2019. They stratified the data by race/ethnicity and assessed PrEP awareness via a patient intake form.
According to their findings, among the 2,100 HIV-negative cisgender women included in the study, 256 met indications for PrEP. However, PrEP awareness remained low — significantly so among Hispanic/Latina women (16.3%; adjusted OR = 0.490; 95% CI, 0.364-0.659) and non-Hispanic Black women (20.2%; aOR = 0.638; 95% CI, 0.485-0.839) relative to non-Hispanic white cis-women (28.5%).
The study showed that men who have sex with men were significantly more aware of PrEP (83.7%; aOR = 18.153; 95% CI, 15.637-21.86) than cisgender women in general (22%).
“The first step in the PrEP care continuum is awareness. This study highlights the need to better educate all patients — but specifically women — on PrEP and whether it is right for them,” Sowemimo-Coker said. “All women, and anyone inquiring, should have access to, at the very least, information about PrEP, which can help empower women in their sexual health choices.”
Collapse
Sowemimo-Coker G, et al. Pre-exposure prophylaxis awareness and use among cisgender women at a sexually transmitted disease clinic, 2017-2019. Presented at: Women in Medicine Summit; Sept. 24-25, 2021 (virtual meeting).
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts