California HIV/AIDS Research Program

This project compared two HIV testing protocols, an HIV test alone or as part of a bundled package with other tests, to examine which resulted in a higher test uptake in a sample of 725 Latino day laborers. The testing uptake was 29.1% for the HIV-only protocol and 13.6% for the HIV-bundled protocol (p < 0.001). Thus higher levels of testing among day laborers may occur when the HIV test is offered alone. However, no HIV-positive tests were found and few risk behaviors reported. This would argue against the need for routine HIV screening with this population as a whole. HIV testing among Latino day laborers should target those involved in actual high HIV risk behaviors, such as unprotected sex with men or injection drug use.