How many men are there in Vancouver who have sex with other men?
It’s a tricky question for numerous reasons. While U.S. sex researcher Alfred Kinsey’s estimate that one in ten men is homosexual has been traditionally cited though has since been discredited, B.C. researchers have come up with a different number.
In an effort to help effectively healthcare providers plan services to address the HIV epidemic, researchers from the University of British Columbia, the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and several other Canadian and U.S. organizations and universities conducted an attempt to try to specify numbers of what includes a potentially “hidden population”.
In the study, which was published in the Journal of Urban Health in June, the researchers point out that census data for sexual orientation has not been routinely collected in Canada or worldwide. Further complicating matters, definitions of sexual orientation can vary between being behaviour- versus identity-based. Stigma can also prevent disclosure or participation in studies. For instance, a 2014 web-based survey involving 8,382 Canadian MSM found that 30 percent stated they would be unwilling to disclose their sexual identity in a government survey.
These factors, in addition to other challenges, can prevent an accurate collection of data from men who have sex with men (MSM) populations, which includes men who may not identify as LGBT.