Study author Dr. Aletha Akers, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said that those tested for HIV tend to do so late in the disease, when they are more likely to have overt symptoms and progress more rapidly to AIDS and die within a year of HIV diagnosis.

Akers and colleagues analyzed data from 514 women ranging in age from 50 to 95. The women visited a general internal medicine clinic at a large, inner-city hospital in Atlanta over a period of 11 months in 2001 and 2002. To evaluate attitudes concerning lifetime HIV infection risk and interest in HIV testing, trained research assistants administered a 68-item questionnaire in a private room. Most of the women said they were not currently sexually active.

More than 60 percent of the participants had never been tested for HIV, although more than half of them could be described as moderate- to high-risk for HIV exposure. Twenty-two percent of participants said they would be interested in HIV testing.

The findings are published in the Journal of Women’s Health.