ken.d.rosenberg{at}state.or.us Kenneth D. Rosenberg
Lansky et al. have done a fine job of documenting recent the
proportion of pregnant U.S. women being tested for HIV. In a national
sample, they found that 59.6% and 55.9% of pregnant women were tested for
HIV in 1998 and 1999, respectively. We used a totally different
methodology and arrived a similar results for Oregon. Oregon's Pregnancy
Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) survey asked a stratified random
sample of Oregon resident women giving birth from August 1998 to July 1999
(n=1867) whether they had an HIV blood test during the pregnancy. We found
that 61.1% (95% CI 57.4%, 64.8%) of women reported that they had been
tested for HIV during their pregnancy.