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Drug and Alcohol Review - 2023 - Andrews - Sexualised drug use among gay and bisexual men in New Zealand Findings from a1.11 MB
Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Sexualised drug use among gay and bisexual men in New Zealand: Findings from a national cross‐sectional study
Drug and Alcohol Review, Vol.43(1), pp.283-293
2024
PMID: 37898964
Abstract
Introduction
New Zealand has a unique illicit drug market, gay cultures and drug use patterns. Minimal attention has been given to how drug use shapes sexual practice, especially in the era of biomedical HIV prevention among gay and bisexual men (GBM).
Methods
An online cross-sectional study of GBM (‘Flux NZ’) adapted from an Australian study was undertaken to explore connections between drug use, sexual practice, health and community. We describe drug use patterns, then identify three discrete groups determined by intensity of recent (past 6 months) sexual practice: no recent sex, recent sex and recent sexualised drug use. We examine factors associated with these groups and identify factors independently predicting sexualised drug use.
Results
Of 739 participants, almost a third had engaged in group sex (29%), 17.5% were taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), 6.5% were HIV positive. Overall, 59.5% had recently used illicit drugs (16.9% methylenedioxymethamphetamine, 6% methamphetamine, 3.3% gamma-hydroxybutyrate acid, 1.4% ketamine). Sexualised drug use was common (35.7%). Those engaged in sexualised drug use were connected to gay community and had a high uptake of biomedical HIV prevention. Independent predictors of sexualised drug use included being sexually adventurous, knowing their HIV status, having more than 10 recent sexual partners, engaging in group sex and sex at a sex-on-site venue.
Discussion and Conclusions
Many GBM engaging in sexualised drug use manage HIV transmission risks through regular testing, PrEP and HIV treatment. HIV prevention efforts should target GBM with less intensive sexual behaviour but who may be at comparatively higher risk of HIV transmission.
Details
- Title
- Sexualised drug use among gay and bisexual men in New Zealand: Findings from a national cross‐sectional study
- Authors
- Samuel Andrews - University of AucklandMohamed Hammoud - UNSW SydneyGarrett Prestage - UNSW SydneyDavid Newcombe - University of AucklandPeter Saxton (Corresponding Author) - University of Auckland
- Publication details
- Drug and Alcohol Review, Vol.43(1), pp.283-293
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Date published
- 2024
- DOI
- 10.1111/dar.13762
- ISSN
- 1465-3362; 0959-5236
- PMID
- 37898964
- Copyright note
- © 2023 The Authors. Drug and Alcohol Review published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Data Availability
- We encourage approaches to examine the Flux NZ dataset. All requests should be sent to the corresponding author.
- Grant note
- This work was funded by the NZ AIDS Foundation Fellowship, NZ Drug Foundation, Australian Research Council.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Health - Psychology
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991196050802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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