Metrics details. Measures included HIV knowledge assessment and factors within each domain of our theoretical framework for sex work harms: 1 socio-demographic factors that may lead to sex work, 2 sex work characteristics and behaviors that may lead to harm, and 3 mutually reinforcing harms that lead to sex work and result from it e. Negative binomial regression identified factors independently associated with suboptimal HIV knowledge i.
Examination of item responses revealed misconceptions regarding specific transmission and prevention mechanisms, including prevention of mother to child transmission. Suboptimal HIV knowledge was independently associated with older age, lower education, living in Tijuana vs. Ciudad Juarez , inconsistent condom use for vaginal sex with male clients, and lacking prior HIV testing.
Our findings imply that interventions should identify and discredit local HIV misconceptions to improve knowledge of specific HIV transmission routes and self-protective strategies e. Interventions will require materials appropriate for women from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and may benefit from innovative harm reduction approaches such as peer education and outreach.
Female sex workers FSWs face many physical and mental health harms through their occupation, including risk of disease acquisition e. Increasingly, researchers and practitioners who work with FSWs are calling for a broader application of the harm reduction agenda from drug use to sex work and other public health responses to the HIV epidemic[ 1 , 2 ].
Knowledge and comprehension of health risk and protective behaviors, as well as access to information, are key components of many health behavior models[ 4 — 6 ]. Therefore, increasing knowledge of HIV transmission routes and risk and protective behaviors plays an important role in many HIV-prevention interventions[ 10 — 12 ].
