Study: CL and casual hook ups linked to rising HIV infection rate

[Camille Fox]

Interesting article.

Also shows rise in infection rate was not related to escorts.


http://m.startribune.com/lifestyle/h...290400001.html

[SA Angel]

Honestly, whenever I give up the ghost and settle down with the swinger of my dreams I would be much more comfortable with him hiring escorts than picking up a random girl from CL or a civvie bar. I've always felt that way. Glad to see that my feelings on that were correct.

[FoulRon]

Correlation <> Causation.
And I noticed it gave them another chance to bash gay men.
I could just be that we've become a more promiscuous society as a whole.

[MaxiMilyen]

Discovered this at MIS Quarterly....you can buy the study for $10......

Abstract
Online platforms offer access to a larger social group than is generally available through offline contacts, making the Internet an emerging venue for seeking casual sex partners. The ease of seeking sex partners through classified ad sites may promote risky behaviors that increase the transmission of STDs. In this paper, using a natural experiment setup, we investigate whether the entry of a major online personals ad site, Craigslist, increases the prevalence of HIV over a 10 year period from 1999 to 2008 across 33 states in the United States. After controlling for extraneous factors, our results suggest that the entry of Craigslist is related to a 15.9 percent increase in HIV cases. Our analysis suggests that the site entry produces an average of 6,130 to 6,455 cases of HIV infection in the United States each year, mapping out to between $62 million and $65.3 million in annual treatment costs. In addition, the analyses reveal that nonmarket-related casual sex is the primary driver of the increase in HIV cases, in contrast to paid transactions solicited on the site (e.g., escort services and prostitution), which has a negative relationship with HIV trends. These findings are essential to understanding the social routes through which HIV transmission takes place and the extent to which site entry can influence HIV trends. Implications for healthcare practitioners and policy makers are discussed..

12/9/13
Additional Details
Author Jason Chan and Anindya Ghose
Year 2014
Volume 38
Issue 4
Keywords Classified ad sites, HIV, Internet, online intermediaries, transmission route
Page Numbers 955-976

[atlcomedy]

Originally Posted by FoulRon

Correlation <> Causation.
And I noticed it gave them another chance to bash gay men.
I could just be that we've become a more promiscuous society as a whole.

LMAO...exactly

What passes for research these days is sad...and the popular press picks it up and runs with sensational headlines because that will get eyeballs.

I don't expect everyone to be an expert on statistical research methodology and design but I'd suggest taking anything with a headline like that one with a grain of salt.

[FoulRon]

Well, from reading the abstract Maxi quoted, at least they came down on the side of sex work in their findings, which is counter to the party line espoused by the prudes.

[Indirah.Raven]

I stopped civvie CL dating the moment I became a provider. Random hookups aren't my style anymore. This business made me even MORE careful in whom I choose to see.

[sketchball82]

Originally Posted by FoulRon

Correlation <> Causation.
And I noticed it gave them another chance to bash gay men.
I could just be that we've become a more promiscuous society as a whole.

This.

When I was in a high school science class, I read an article about milk causing cancer because of the very high worldwide correlation. That correlation is very real and definitely exists. That means milk does cause cancer, right?!

Fuck no. The correlation can be explained by the fact that in third world countries, milk is too expensive so they don't drink it. They also do do not live to older ages, which is typically when people get cancer. The net result is a population that has a common causation: two things that are caused by something else, i.e., being in severe poverty. So the cause and effect is actually severe poverty causes both little-to-no milk and little-to-no cancer.

Back to HIV. I mean stop and think about it for a second. In the last 15 years, we've found drugs that can keep hosts alive, but due to HIV's mutating power, we cannot cure it due to being unable to design a drug that interacts with in in its almost infinite hydrodynamic conformations. So to my point: what would you expect would be the effect of finding a treatment to keep "hosts" alive without actually being able to cure the disease? More importantly, what would be the effect of giving a host more time to spread the disease?

[Guest031115]

Can't wait for the study on Tinder and unwanted pregnancies!