HIV Prevention Strategies for Key Populations
Summary
Key populations—including female sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender individuals, people who inject drugs and young key populations—bear a disproportionate burden of new HIV infections. Effective prevention requires a combination of biomedical, behavioural and structural interventions tailored to the needs of each group. Biomedical strategies centre on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and antiretroviral therapy (ART) delivered through accessible and stigma-free services. Behavioural interventions range from peer-led condom promotion and risk-reduction counselling to gender-affirming care that fosters trust and retention. Structural approaches address legal, policy and social barriers by decriminalising sex work, training health-care providers in non-discriminatory practice and mobilising communities to demand supportive environments. Precision prevention—using sub-national and network analyses to identify hotspots—allows resources to be targeted where incidence remains highest. Across settings, the integration of prevention and treatment within routine health services, allied with community empowerment and rights-based advocacy, underpins sustained reductions in HIV transmission among key populations and benefits wider epidemic control.
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HIV Prevention Strategies for Key Populations publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in hiv prevention strategies for key populations across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Key populations: Groups at heightened risk of HIV infection due to behavioural, social or structural factors, including sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender individuals and people who inject drugs.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP): A daily or event-driven antiretroviral regimen taken by HIV-negative individuals to prevent acquisition of the virus.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART): Lifelong combination drug treatment for people living with HIV that suppresses viral replication and prevents disease progression.
Precision prevention approach: The use of epidemiological and modelling data at sub-national or network levels to target HIV prevention resources where they will have the greatest impact.
References
- A sub‐national HIV epidemic appraisal in Kenya: a new approach for identifying priority geographies, populations and programmes for optimizing coverage for HIV prevention. Journal of the International AIDS Society (2024).
- Targeted combination prevention to support female sex workers in Zimbabwe accessing and adhering to antiretrovirals for treatment and prevention of HIV (SAPPH-IRe): a cluster-randomised trial. The Lancet HIV (2018).
- Drug‐drug interactions between feminizing hormone therapy and pre‐exposure prophylaxis among transgender women: the iFACT study. Journal of the International AIDS Society (2019).
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