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. 2018 Jul;22(7):2056-2067.
doi: 10.1007/s10461-018-2100-y.

Syndemic Conditions, HIV Transmission Risk Behavior, and Transactional Sex Among Transgender Women

Jeffrey T Parsons  1   2   3 , Nadav Antebi-Gruszka  4   5 , Brett M Millar  4 , Demetria Cain  4   6 , Sitaji Gurung  4   7
Affiliations

Syndemic Conditions, HIV Transmission Risk Behavior, and Transactional Sex Among Transgender Women

Jeffrey T Parsons et al. AIDS Behav. 2018 Jul.

Abstract

This study examined the effect of four syndemic conditions-namely, polydrug use, depression, childhood sexual abuse, and intimate partner violence-on rates of HIV transmission risk behavior (TRB) and separately, transactional sex among transgender women. TRB was defined as the number of condomless penetrative sex events with a casual or main partner of discordant or unknown HIV status. Using data from 212 transgender women in New York City, multivariable analyses revealed that, compared to those with no syndemic conditions, dramatically higher rates of recent HIV TRB events (ARR = 8.84, p < 0.001) and recent transactional sex events (ARR = 8.32, p < 0.001) were reported by participants with all four syndemic conditions. These findings highlight the importance of considering the role of syndemic conditions in HIV risk among transgender women, and the need for comprehensive psychosocial interventions to improve sexual health among this population.

Keywords: HIV transmission risk behavior; Syndemics; Transactional sex; Transgender women.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

References

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