HIV Prevalence Among Women Who Exchange Sex for Money or Drugs-4 U.S. Cities

Limited data exist in the United States on the prevalence of HIV among women who exchange sex.

We estimate HIV prevalence of women who exchange sex from a 2016 survey in Chicago, Detroit, Houston, and Seattle and compare it with the prevalence of HIV among women of low socioeconomic status (SES), who did not exchange sex, and women in the general population.

Women who exchange sex were recruited via respondent-driven sampling among some cities participating in National HIV Behavioral Surveillance, interviewed, and offered HIV testing. We estimate HIV prevalence and, using prevalence ratios, compare it with the prevalence among women of low SES who did not exchange sex in the 2013 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance cycle, and to women in the general population estimated using 2015 National HIV Surveillance data.

One thousand four hundred forty women reported exchange sex in 2016. Aggregated HIV prevalence was 4.9% [95% confidence interval (CI): 2.7 to 7.1] among women who exchanged sex, 1.6% (95% CI: 0.3 to 2.8) among women of low SES who did not exchange sex, and 0.6% (95% CI: 0.5% to 0.6%) among women in the general population. HIV prevalence among women who exchanged sex was 3.1 times (95% CI: 1.6 to 5.9) as high as among women of low SES who did not exchange sex, and 8.8 times (95% CI: 7.0 to 11.1) as high as among women in the general population.

HIV prevalence was significantly higher among women who exchanged sex compared with women in the general population and women of low SES who did not exchange sex.