CDC: Gaps Exist in PrEP Prescription for Minorities

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use is sparse among minority groups who need it most, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

After analyzing 2014-2016 data from the IQVIA Real World Data — Longitudinal Prescriptions database, the CDC researchers found that only 11.2% of PrEP users were black and 13.1% were Hispanic. This finding comes as a shock, since in 2015, 43.7% of adults for whom PrEP was indicated were black and 24.7% were Hispanic.

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The researchers also found that PrEP is being prescribed less often to minority groups who have PrEP indicators, as compared with their white counterparts. White men and women had been prescribed PrEP nearly 6 times more often than black men and women.

A gap in geography was also identified. While men and women in the South had accounted for 52% of HIV diagnoses in the United States in 2016, only 27% of them were taking PrEP.

The gap is not only apparent within minority communities, but also between all of those who meet the PrEP indications and those who receive a prescription.

From 2014 to 2016, the annual number of PrEP users aged 16 years or older had increased by 470%, from 13,748 to 78,360. But in 2016, only 7%—just 2.1% of them women—of the estimated 1.1 million people who had indications for PrEP had been prescribed PrEP.

“Focused public health efforts to support increasing PrEP prescriptions for persons in populations who might benefit from its use could increase the impact of PrEP on HIV incidence in the United States,” the researchers concluded.

—Colleen Murphy

Reference:

Huang YLA, Zhu W, Smith DK, Harris N, Hoover KW. HIV preexposure prophylaxis, by race and ethnicity — United States, 2014–2016. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2018;67(41);1147-1150. http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6741a3.