16th International AIDS Conference Toronto, Canada - August 13 - 18, 2006

USING MULTIPLIER METHODS TO ESTIMATE THE SIZE OF FEMALE SEX WORKER POPULATION BASED ON THE HIV/AIDS BEHAVIOURAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM IN TWO CHINESE CITIES

Int Conf AIDS. 2006 Aug 13-18;16 Abstract No. TuAc0405

D. Zhang¹, L. Wang², F. Lv³, P. Bi^4
1 Chinese National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, Department of Epidemiology, Beijing, China, University of Adelaide, Department of Public Health, Adelaide, Australia, ² Chinese National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, Department of Epidemiology, Beijing, China, ³ Chinese National Centre for AIDS /STD Control and Prevention, Department of Epidemiology, Beijing, China, ⁴ University of Adelaide, Department of Public Health, Adelaide, Australia

BACKGROUND: Understanding the size of the FSW population is very important for HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention. However, currently there are no standard methods to produce such estimation given their hidden and stigmatized status. This study used multiplier methods to produce estimates based on existing HIV/AIDS behavioural surveillance system (BBS) in two Chinese cities.

METHODS: Female STD attendees aged 14 years and over (except for those admitted for sexual ability reasons) were interviewed about their commercial sex behaviour in the past three months from selected STD clinics in the two Chinese cities from October to December 2003. Meanwhile, FSWs recruited from different level of entertainment establishments were interviewed about their health seeking behaviours in the above STD clinics. The size of FSW population (N) was derived by the formula N=m*p1/p2 where m is the number of female STD attendees in selected STD clinics in a given time period, p1 is the proportion of FSWs among female STD attendees in selected STD clinics, and p2 is the proportion of the FSW population who reported to have attended the selected STD clinics within the same period of time.

RESULTS: The size of the FSW population in the urban area of Xingyi was about 2,500 (842*48.9%/16.2%) with a 95% Confidence Interval of (2,000 – 3,400), which accounted for 1.4% of the total urban population. There were 17,500 FSWs in the urban area of Guiyang with a 95% CI of (10,300 – 31,900) which was 1.3% of its total urban population (rounded to the nearest 100).

CONCLUSIONS: This method is straightforward and cost-effective especially suitable to countries where HIV behavioural surveillance has been established in HIV/AIDS risk populations. Combing with HIV/AIDS behavioural surveillance system, this method could be used to generate the estimation in a broader area and indicate secular change in the FSW population size overtime.

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2006-08-13
TuAc0405

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