Interventions that promote healthier sexual behaviour among black women and Latinas can help prevent HIV infections, according to a recent study.

Researchers examined the sexual behaviours of a nationally representative group of U.S. women that can prevent against or increase risk for HIV infection and reported the differences in behaviours such as condom use and concurrent sex partners and the changes in these behaviours over 7 years for white, black, and Latina women ages 18-44 in the study.Researcher Tiffiany Aholou and colleagues from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ICF International, Atlanta, GA co-authored the article entitled ‘Sexual Risk and Protective Behaviours Among Reproductive-Aged Women in the United States.’

The study of more than 13,500 women focused on three sexual risk behaviours for HIV: concurrent sex partnerships, non-monogamous sex partners, and inconsistent condom use for either vaginal or anal sex. The researchers reported the prevalence of each risk behaviour and identified specific differences in HIV-related sexual risk behaviours depending on race/ethnicity and other socio-demographic variables such as married/single and bisexuality."Understanding that sexual risk and protective behaviours vary with race/ethnicity can help guide improved interventions aimed at decreasing the disparity in HIV infection among black and Latina women," said Susan G. Kornstein, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women's Health, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health, Richmond, VA, and President of the Academy of Women's Health.The study is published in Journal of Women's Health.