ABSTRACT
The identification in January 1983 of human immunodeficiency virus’s (HIV’s) antigen structure opened the door to new means of controlling the spread of the epidemic, notably through the development of specific serotests. The use of these serological tests, which came onto the market in 1985, plays an important role in structuring attitudes and behaviour towards HIV risk for seropositive and seronegative individuals alike. Testing is a major public health tool. This chapter reviews the different procedures used in the European surveys to investigate HIV testing in order to highlight the problems of question wordings and to identify their implications for data comparison. It shows that, despite their limited comparability, the data on voluntary HIV testing in the European surveys in our possession nevertheless give a broad picture of the magnitude and main specificities of voluntary HIV testing. The chapter proposes some guidelines for designing questions on voluntary HIV testing in future surveys.
