bout 17 percent of gay men in Chicago are…

Posted on July 25, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized

bout 17 percent of gay men in Chicago are HIV-positive — and half of them don’t know it.

That’s according to authorititative new estimates from the Chicago Public Health Department.

In particular, black men who have sex with men have double the HIV infection rates of white and Hispanic men, even though they don’t appear to engage in riskier behavior, Chicago health officials said today.

Their report was based on data collected last year from 570 Chicago men in the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system.

It’s the first time Chicago health officials have used blood-testing to determine HIV infection rates in this high-risk population, said Christopher Brown, assistant commissioner of the health department’s STD, HIV and AIDS division.

Past estimates have relied solely on interviews with gay and bisexual men about their HIV status.

“What we found out pretty much confirms what we’ve known for a while,” Brown said.

See Study: Half of HIV-positive men in Chicago don’t know it

Chicago Sun-Times

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