A new survey estimates that 33% of New York’s gay or bisexual Black men between ages 23 and 29 are HIV positive, the Associated Press reports.
The study conducted by the city’s Health Department found that just 2% of the city’s white gay men in the same age group were HIV-positive, while 14% of Latinos were infected.
Researchers surveyed 542 men who identify themselves as either gay or bisexual, and a new test was used to determine whether people had been infected within the previous six months.
The men who tested positive in all racial groups tended to have had sex without using a condom.
”We don’t have a solid explanation for that because we don’t see the kinds of differentials in behavior between Black and white men to explain this,” said Lucia Torian, who directed the study and plans to discuss it at the Conference on Human Retroviruses in Chicago in two weeks.