Background: Structured inequality creates sexual mixing patterns conducive to faster spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV in populations through a number of mechanisms. These mechanisms include policing patterns, vastly unequal financial resources, and gender power dynamics that preclude the practice of safe sex behaviors. Sexual mixing patterns may increase the rate of spread of STI either by increasing the probability of sexual exposure of uninfected individuals to infected individuals or by structuring unsafe sexual behavior patterns.
Objectives: To review patterns of age mixing, patterns of sex partner concurrency and patterns of sex work as they relate to structured inequality .
Methods: Analyses of data collected through a variety of studies and surveys.
Results: Policing practices result in a real scarcity of stable male partners in African American populations, increasing concurrent partnerships. Consistent age differences between sex partners, which are partly due to inequalities in financial resources, result in unequal gender power dynamics. Young women in such partnerships are not empowered to negotiate for safe sex and engage in risky sexual practices.
Conclusions: Structured inequality operates through mechanisms of sexual mixing and gender power dynamics to fuel the spread of STI.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to: 1. Understand how mixing patterns are related to both structured inequality and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. 2. Describe how structured inequality affects sex ratios in local communities, and how this in turn can affect sexual partnership patterns. 3. Conceptualize how policing patterns and other aspects of structural inequality are related to the prevalence of concurrent sexual partnerships and the implications of this for the spread of infections.
Keywords: Social Inequalities, Infectious Diseases
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.