Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Monday June 28, 1999
Beth J. Harpaz, Associated Press Writer
The survey of more than 7,000 homosexuals, conducted last year by the Gay Men's Health Crisis, is the biggest of its kind in the nation's largest city. As in recent surveys of other cities with large homosexual populations, the New York survey found a substantial group of men had unprotected anal intercourse in the past year - 39 percent.
The rest said they either are having sex with partners whose infection status matches their own or are limiting their sexual activities to certain practices that reduce the risk of infection.
Fifteen percent overall said they abstained from anal sex altogether and 35 percent said they always use condoms for anal sex.
Only 11 percent of men who have unprotected anal sex said they do so with a partner whose HIV status they did not know.
Only 2 percent admitted being HIV-positive and having unprotected anal sex with someone whose HIV status was not known to them.
About 5 percent also acknowledged having unprotected sex with women.
The survey, first reported on Monday, has been accepted for presentation at a conference in Atlanta this summer by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The survey was compiled from 7,065 questionnaires handed out at bars, clubs, bathhouses, street corners, beaches and other venues where homosexual men gather. To reach blacks, Hispanics and other minorities, a peer system was used in which volunteers attempted to reach out to men of similar ethnic backgrounds.
The survey is not as scientific as a random poll that is then weighted to reflect the actual population by age and ethnicity. White, middle-aged, educated men were overrepresented in proportion to their actual numbers. Young black and Hispanic men were underrepresented.
But the methodology - using volunteers enlisted by a gay organization to reach out to their peers - has been used in other cities.
In January, the CDC cited as significant the findings of a similar street survey by STOP AIDS, a San Francisco-based advocacy group. That survey of nearly 22,000 homosexual men found that 39.2 percent reported having unprotected anal sex in 1997, up substantially from 30.4 percent in a 1994 STOP AIDS street survey.
Other alarming trends were also reported earlier this year, such as increases in rates of other sexually transmitted diseases in some cities and a rise in risky behavior like sex parties for HIV-positive men where condoms are banned.
Data from New York City, however, have been scarce. Although a law has been passed requiring clinics to report HIV infection rates, the regulations have not yet been implemented, and the city Health Department, unlike other Health Departments around the country, does not issue monthly reports tracking other sexually transmitted diseases.
The GMHC study, being the first of its kind, does not indicate whether risky behavior here is increasing, decreasing or remaining steady.
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