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11 percent of U.S. men have 'concurrent' sexual partners, UNC study finds
CHAPEL HILL - During a one-year period about 11 percent of U.S. men had "concurrent" sexual partnerships or partnerships that overlap in time, and this may be an important contributing factor in the spread of HIV infection, a UNC study has found.
Oct. 30, 2007
11 percent of U.S. men have ‘concurrent’ sexual partners, UNC study finds
CHAPEL HILL - During a one-year period about 11 percent of U.S. men had "concurrent" sexual partnerships or partnerships that overlap in time, and this may be an important contributing factor in the spread of HIV infection, a UNC study has found.
In addition, the UNC researchers found that the prevalence of concurrent sexual partnerships was higher among black and Hispanic men than in other groups. Furthermore, men with concurrent partners were more likely to be unmarried, to have been incarcerated in the past year and to have had sex while intoxicated by drugs or alcohol, to have had sex with other men, and to have female sexual partners who also have concurrent sexual partnerships.
“All of these findings are cause for concern, because each by itself increases the risk of HIV transmission,” said Dr. Adaora Adimora, the study’s lead author and an associate professor in the schools of medicine and public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“By connecting more people to each other and to people with these risky behaviors, concurrent partnerships may be an important factor in the spread of HIV infection in the United States and in continuing the epidemic transmission of HIV among blacks and Hispanics,” she said.
The study is published in the December 2007 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Adimora’s co-authors are Dr. Victor J. Schoenbach from the UNC School of Public Health and Dr. Irene A. Doherty from the UNC School of Medicine.
In the study, Adimora and colleagues analyzed sexual partnership data that were collected from 4,928 men during the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), which was conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the purposes of the study, a concurrent sexual partnership was defined as one in which a survey respondent reported having first sexual intercourse with a new partner on a date earlier than the date of last intercourse with a previous partner during the preceding 12 months.
UNC Health Care media contact: Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-2860 or scrayton@unch.unc.edu
School of Public Health contact: Ramona Dubose, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu
American Journal of Public Health Web site: http://www.ajph.org/
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The UNC Health Care System is a not-for-profit integrated health care system owned by the state of North Carolina and based in Chapel Hill. It exists to further the teaching mission of the University of North Carolina and to provide state-of-the-art patient care. UNC Health Care is comprised of UNC Hospitals, which is ranked among the top 50 in the nation in six specialties by U.S. News & World Report and ranked one of the country’s 41 best on the Leapfrog 2007 Top Hospitals list; the UNC School of Medicine, a nationally eminent research institution; community practices; home health and hospice services in seven central North Carolina counties; and Rex Healthcare and its provider network in Wake County. UNC Health Care also manages Chatham Hospital in Siler City.