1. Rates and correlates of HIV and STI infection among homeless women.
- Author
-
Caton CL, El-Bassel N, Gelman A, Barrow S, Herman D, Hsu E, Tochterman AZ, Johnson K, and Felix A
- Subjects
- Adult, Chlamydia Infections diagnosis, Chlamydia Infections epidemiology, Female, Gonorrhea diagnosis, Gonorrhea epidemiology, Humans, Middle Aged, New York City epidemiology, Prevalence, Risk Factors, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Bacterial diagnosis, Substance-Related Disorders complications, Substance-Related Disorders epidemiology, HIV Infections epidemiology, Ill-Housed Persons statistics & numerical data, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Bacterial epidemiology
- Abstract
We studied the prevalence of biologically confirmed HIV, Chlamydia, and gonorrhea in a randomly selected sample of sheltered homeless women in New York City, and explored their association with demographic, homeless history, and clinical risk factors. 329 women were randomly selected from 28 family and single adult shelters. The estimated prevalence of HIV in the study sample is 0.6 % (±0.3 %); for Chlamydia it is 6.7 % (±2.2 %); for gonorrhea it is 0.9 % (±0.04 %). A history of childhood sexual abuse, arrest history, current psychotic symptoms, and substance use disorder placed women at greater risk of infection. We consider contextual factors that may yield underestimates of HIV prevalence in our sample and discuss how a more comprehensive prevalence estimate might be constructed. Findings underscore the importance of offering HIV/STI testing, counseling, and HIV risk prevention interventions to homeless women and suggest that interventions should be tailored to the needs of specific subgroups of homeless women.
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF