LOS ANGELES, March 2 (UPI) -- Few primary-care practitioners in Los Angeles offer HIV tests or safer-sex advice to their Hispanic patients, according to a study.
The study, published in the Journal of the National Medical Association, found 41 percent of the primary-care doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants had regularly offered advice about sexually transmitted infection or safe sex to patients during the prior six months.
Thirty-six percent offered more than 20 HIV tests during the same period, despite a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta that physicians in high HIV-prevalence areas routinely offer HIV testing to their patients.
The primary-care providers served in primarily Hispanic communities, and 57 percent said they spoke Spanish with the majority of their patients.
The percentage of new AIDS cases among the Hispanic population rose steadily each year from 1992 to 2004, making Hispanics the group with the highest proportion of new AIDS cases in the county, according to Los Angeles County statistics.
