( Area 3 which includes the San Gabriel ...)HIV Tests Offered to Los Angeles Hispanics Insufficient: Study,Health

Area 3, which includes the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys. Solorio’s research is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the UCLA Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center.

Kushner and Solorio also found that the white physicians surveyed were less likely than their Hispanic, Asian or African American counterparts to take a patient’s sexual history. Overall, 59 percent of the providers surveyed were male; 25 percent were white, non-Hispanic; 27 percent were Hispanic; 9 percent were African American; 33 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander; and 6 percent listed themselves as “other.”

Though the study was small — only 85 doctors out of 191 approached responded to the survey — it still indicated that white providers were less likely to take their patients’ sexual histories, Kushner said.

“We really have to improve the sexual history–taking skills of our primary care providers, and we have to work more intensely with the larger percentage of providers, who are white,” Kushner said.

Although 87 percent of the providers surveyed had ordered at least one HIV test for one of their patients during the six-month period, the total number of HIV tests offered to patients was quite low. Six percent of providers had not ordered a single test, 27 percent had offered one to 10 tests, 24 percent had offered 11 to 20, and 36 percent had offered more than 20. Seven percent either did not know or provided no answer. Despite the low number of tests offered, 36 percent of providers reported to having at least one person test positive during the six-month period.

“These findings suggest that providers are largely testing patients who present with symptoms,” Solorio said.

According to the county Health Department, the majority of Hispanics diagnosed with AIDS tested HIV-positive less than one year prior to their AIDS diagnosis. Thus, the challenge to providers pr
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