Study suggests gay men in Mexico City willing to participate in HIV prevention activities for $288 per year

"A new study suggests that most young gay men in Mexico City would pledge to stay HIV-free, attend a monthly safe-sex talk and take regular HIV tests to prove they were uninfected -- all in return for just $288 a year," the New York Times reports. "Most male prostitutes would make the same promise for $156 a year, the study found," the newspaper writes, adding, "The study, done by researchers from Brown University, the University of California at Berkeley and Mexico's national public health institute, was published online by The European Journal of Health Economics." According to the New York Times, "Although other countries have tried programs that pay people for good health behavior, like taking children for checkups, the authors believe their study was the first to pinpoint a specific dollar value that would ensure cooperation from 70 percent of a risk group -- in this case, young gay and bisexual men, who have very high HIV infection rates and are the drivers of Mexico's epidemic" (McNeil, 4/1).