An Observational Study on HIV and Syphilis Rates and Associated Risk Factors among Elderly Men in Wuxi, China

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) remains a nationwide health problem in China; there were a reported 1,045,000 people living with Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS by the end of October 2020, and the proportion of individuals aged 50 years and older living with HIV has also increased from 8% to 24% over the past two decades.

A cross-sectional study and an 1:2 matched case-control study were conducted from July to August 2016, in Wuxi city, eastern China. A total of 1,000 men aged 50 years and older completed a face-to-face interview regarding their AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes, as well as risk behaviors.

Prevalence was 0.1% for HIV and 2% for syphilis. The awareness rate of AIDS-related knowledge among elderly men was 48.9% (range 40.7%-63.9%). The 1꞉2 matched case-control study indicated that only the AIDS-related attitudes were different between the two groups (χ²=8.726, P=0.013), the conditional logistic regression analysis indicated that scores of AIDS health knowledge were the only significant prognostic factor for the infection (HR=0.754 (0.569- 0.999), P=0.049).

It was crucial to prevent HIV/AIDS and syphilis infections by improving the awareness of AIDS-related knowledge and changing related attitudes among the elderly. Further research aimed at identifying how these factors impact their sexual decision-making can shed valuable insight into further prevention program in this population.