An Emory study presented today at the International Conference on AIDS, currently being held in Washington, D.C., shows “greatly” elevated rates of new HIV infections among African-American gay and bisexual men.

The study focused on six cities across the U.S.:  Atlanta, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

Black men who have sex with men contracted HIV at a rate of 2.3 percent per year, or nearly 50 percent higher than in white men who have sex with men in the U.S.

The study goes on to state that young black men, 30 and younger, contract HIV at an annual rate of 5.9 percent, or roughly three times that of young white men who have sex with men.

The study enrolled some 1,553 participants and was conducted by Carlos del Rio, MD, Hubert professor and chair of the Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health and professor of medicine.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

“Based on these findings, tailored HIV prevention interventions for black MSM should be implemented in the US. The recent approval by the FDA of tenofovir/emtricitabine (commonly known as Truvada) for pre-exposure prophylaxis offers another tool that should help in HIV prevention, but the study showed that social determinants of disease such as poverty, homophobia and racism also play a role in the high rates of HIV among black MSM,” del Rio said via a media release.

Emory recruited 292 African-American men for the study, or 18 percent of the total number of participants.

Top photo: The AIDS Memorial Quilt in Atlanta's Piedmont Park (file)