Communication of HIV Serostatus Between Potential Sex Partners in Personal Ads

We studied reference to HIV in personal ads from 1986 to 1993 to assess knowledge of HIV serostatus as a criterion for selecting sex partners. Personals increased exponentially during 1986 to 1993. Men seeking men (MSM) were more likely (8%) to mention HIV than persons seeking other situations (0% to 1.6%). The proportion of personals mentioning HIV increased from 0.5% to 2.9% globally and from 1.9% to 12.2% for MSM (chi-square tests for trend; p < .001). Younger MSM mentioned HIV less often than MSM older than 35 years (odds ratio = .46; 95% confidence interval: .31 to .70). The increasing proportion of personals mentioning HIV suggests that serostatus is increasingly used as a criterion for partner selection, although most (84%) such ads concerned MSM. We discuss the implications of these findings for preventing sexual transmission of HIV.