Few Primary Care Practitioners Offer HIV Tests to Hispanic Patients in Los Angeles, New UCLA AIDS Institute Study Finds

“Even as the AIDS epidemic in Los Angeles County has shifted largely to Hispanics, primary care practitioners serving this segment of the population often fail to offer either HIV testing or safer sex advice to their patients, according to a new UCLA AIDS Institute study.

The study, published in the March issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association, found that only 41 percent of these primary care providers ”” including doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants ”” surveyed between March and June 2004 had regularly offered advice about sexually transmitted infection or safe sex to patients during the prior six months. Only 36 percent had offered more than 20 HIV tests during the same period, despite a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control in 2001 that physicians in high HIV–prevalence areas routinely offer HIV testing to their patients.”

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