Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Although female sex workers are known to be vulnerable to HIV infection, little is known about the epidemiology of HIV infection among this high-risk population in the United States. We systematically identified and critically assessed published studies reporting HIV prevalence among female sex workers in the United States.
We searched for and included original English-language articles reporting data on the prevalence of HIV as determined by testing at least 50 females who exchanged sexual practices for money or drugs. We did not apply any restrictions on date of publication.
We included 14 studies from to that reported HIV prevalence for a total of adult female sex workers.
Only two of the 14 studies were conducted in the last 10 years. The pooled estimate of HIV prevalence was Very few studies have documented the prevalence of HIV among female sex workers in the United States; however, the available evidence does suggest that HIV prevalence among this vulnerable population is high. Based on the latest available data, the rate of diagnosis for HIV infection among women in the United States decreased from 9. However, there may be subgroups among the female population where HIV transmission remains high, such as female sex workers.
Globally, sex workers are among the populations most affected by HIV. A systematic review of HIV infection among female sex workers in developing countries found an overall prevalence of A recent update to this systematic review included additional data from to and showed that the estimated prevalence varied widely by region from 0.
