Only a third of trans women in San Francisco have talked to a healthcare provider about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and just 12% are taking it, Albert Liu of the San Francisco Department of Public Health told the HIV Research for Prevention conference (HIVR4P 2018) in Madrid last week. Gay and other men who have sex with men (MSM) have much greater engagement with PrEP.

The data come from 368 HIV-negative trans women living in the San Francisco Bay area who provided data to the Trans National Study in 2016-2018. This is a population based cohort recruited through respondent driven sampling – an initial set of respondents recruit people they know, who then recruit other people they know, and so on. A mathematical model is then used to weight the sample to compensate for non-random recruitment patterns, so the results should be less prone to bias.

A comparator group of cisgender MSM was provided by 399 local residents taking part in the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System (NHBS). Read more via AIDS map