Increase in the overall level of protected anal sex in men who have sex with men in France: results from the repeated cross-sectional survey Rapport au Sexe, France, 2017–2019

ABSTRACT

This study measures the evolution in the overall level of protection against HIV by men who have sex with men (MSM) in France. Using data from the 2017 and 2019 editions of Rapport au Sexe – an online survey – we compared the use of HIV prevention tools by MSM during their most recent anal intercourse (MRAI) with a casual male partner. We developed a classification with five categories ordered according to the effectiveness of each tool method in reducing the risk of acquiring HIV: Treatment as prevention (TasP), Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), exclusive condom use, Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) or nothing (i.e., no tool used). The percentage of MSM who did not use any prevention tool decreased from 25.9% in 2017 to 23.5% in 2019 (aOR [95%CI] = 0.9 [0.8–0.9]). The proportion of MSM who took PrEP during the MRAI increased from 5.4% in 2017 to 14.0% in 2019 (aOR [95%CI] = 2.9[2.5–3.3]). The proportion of MSM who used condoms exclusively decreased from 67.5% in 2017 to 61.3% in 2019 (aOR [95%CI] = 0.8 [0.7–0.8]). We observed an increase in the rate of protected anal sex, and a decrease in the rate of condom use. The implementation of PrEP may be one of the main driving forces behind these changes.

KEYWORDS:

• Men who have sex with men
• HIV
• preventive behavior
• biomedical prevention

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the survey participants who gave their time to fill in the Rapport Au Sexe questionnaire and Jude Sweeney for editing the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Both editions of the Rapport au Sexe study were supported by the National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS).