IAS 2015Researchers have charted how HIV has affected older generations of gay men in the Seattle area worse than their younger counterparts and how, in more recent years, racial disparities have emerged, aidsmap reports. Results from a study of the epidemic’s course among King County, Washington, gay men were presented at the 8th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The study’s findings are not necessarily applicable nationwide.

By the ages of 40, 50 and 60, gay white King County men born between 1945 and 1949 had a respective 5, 22 and 24 percent rate of infection. Black men of that cohort had a respective 5, 24 and 29 percent infection rate.

HIV has affected those born during the 1950s much worse, though the group hit the hardest has been those born between 1960 and 1964: By the respective ages of 30, 40 and 50, these gay white men had a 20, 35 and 42 percent infection rate, compared with gay black men’s respective infection rates of 48 and 60 percent at ages 40 and 50.

Just under 10 percent of those gay white men born between 1975 and 1979 are HIV positive—an infection rate that may have plateaued—compared with 17 percent of gay black men born during this period.

There is less data on men born more recently, although it looks hopeful.

To read the aidsmap article, click here.