Data

Condom use among men who have sex with men

See all data and research on:

What you should know about this indicator

Condoms can substantially reduce the risk of sexually transmitting HIV. Consistently and correctly using condoms is therefore important for men who have sex with men because of the high risk of HIV transmission during unprotected anal sex. In addition, men who have anal sex with other men may also have female partners, who could become infected as well. Condom use with the most recent male partner is considered a reliable indicator of longer-term behaviour.

Note: countries with generalized epidemics may also have a concentrated subepidemic among gay men and other men who have sex with men. If so, calculating and reporting on this indicator for this population would be valuable.

Method of measurement:

Behavioural surveillance or other special surveys

In a behavioural survey of a sample of gay men and other men who have sex with men, respondents are asked about sexual partnerships in the past six months, about anal sex within these partnerships and about condom use when they last had anal sex. Condom use applies whether the respondent is the receptive and insertive partner.

Whenever possible, data for gay men and other men who have sex with men should be collected with civil society organizations that have worked closely with this population in the field.

Access to gay men and other men who have sex with men and the data collected from them must remain confidential and secure.

Disaggregation:

  • Age (<25 and 25+ years)
Source
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
August 9, 2023
Date range
2011–2022
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

UNAIDS leads the world's most extensive data collection on HIV epidemiology, programme coverage and finance and publishes the most authoritative and up-to-date information on the HIV epidemic.

In some cases there is no data for some country and year. This can be a result of very small epidemics among women in the reproductive age which makes estimation of the mother to child transmission very unstable. Another reason for missing data is that relevant authorities may have asked UNAIDS not to share their estimates.

This report makes clear that there is a path to end AIDS. Taking that path will help ensure preparedness to address other pandemic challenges, and advance progress across the Sustainable Development Goals. The data and real-world examples in the report make it very clear what that path is. It is not a mystery. It is a choice. Some leaders are already following the path—and succeeding. It is inspiring to note that Botswana, Eswatini, Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe have already achieved the 95–95–95 targets, and at least 16 other countries (including eight in sub-Saharan Africa) are close to doing so.

Retrieved on
August 9, 2023
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
The path that ends AIDS: UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2023. Geneva: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS; 2023.
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Condom use among men who have sex with men”, part of the following publication: Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie (2023) - “HIV / AIDS”. Data adapted from Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/condom-use-between-men [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Condom use among men who have sex with men” [dataset]. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, “Global AIDS Update” [original data]. Retrieved December 4, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/condom-use-between-men