HIV Testing Among Sexually Experienced Asian and Pacific Islander Young Women:

Purpose

To describe the proportion of HIV testing in the past 12 months among sexually experienced Asian and Pacific Islander (API) women and to investigate to what extent routine gynecologic care (RGC) increases HIV testing among API women.

Methods

Data were derived from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Analyses were limited to 7,576 sexually experienced women (White, n = 4,482 [68.5%]; Black, n = 1,693 [25.6%]; Hispanic, n = 923 [13.9%]; API, n = 478 [7.2%]) aged 18–27 years. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the association between RGC and HIV testing after controlling for predisposing, need, and enabling factors.

Findings

On average, 22.8% (n = 1,504) of sexually experienced women reported HIV testing in the past year. API women had the lowest proportion of testing (17.2%), and Black women had the highest (26.2%). Overall, 60.2% of API women reported receiving RGC; however, only 15.5% of API who received RGC reported HIV testing. After controlling for covariates, significantly positive associations were found for White, Black, and Hispanic women between RGC and HIV testing; however, there was no evidence that RGC was associated with HIV testing among API women.

Conclusion

Our data suggest that RGC does not increase HIV testing among API women. To eliminate disparities in HIV testing service utilization among API women, appropriate efforts should be directed to better understand the barriers and facilitators of HIV testing among this population.