Researchers reviewed the medical records of 56,895 California residents who were on one or more anti-psychotic medications. The participants were aged 18 years to 67 years and all were enrolled in Medicaid from Oct. 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2011.
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The study shows that over one year, only 6.7 percent of the 56,895 underwent HIV testing. The self-reported HIV-testing rate among California’s general population was 5.2 percent in 2011. Additionally, the study shows 7.7 percent of women were tested in the one-year span, versus 5.5 percent of men. Around 10.8 percent of black people were tested, compared with 6 percent of white people and 2.7 percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders respectively.
“This is a missed prevention opportunity to detect HIV early in the course of illness,” said Christina Mangurian, MD, of the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Psychiatry and first author of the study. “Effective treatments are widely available and people with severe mental illness appear to comply with antiretroviral therapies at rates similar to other groups. We believe that annual HIV testing should be strongly considered by public mental health administrators.”
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