In the absence of detailed information about the population size and behaviour data of men-who-have-sex-with-men MSM , the estimation of prevalence rates of sexually transmitted infections STIs and the design of public health interventions become difficult. The aim of the present study is to estimate the lower boundary of age-specific population sizes and retrieve self-reported information from this population.
We used publicly accessible data from a large online dating and social network website for MSM in Germany to retrieve data on the age and regional distribution of profiles. The profiles were also stratified by their information on the preferred position during anal intercourse, safer sex, and sexual identity.
A total of , user profiles correspond to an average Although the information on the absolute numbers for different age groups is limited by the search engine, age-specific relative frequencies were found to increase from Around one third of profile owners stated to be versatile with respect to the preferred position in anal intercourse. Online social network or dating sites can provide some information about specific populations in the absence of other data sources.
The presented results are the first to report age-specific rates of MSM per 1, male inhabitants in Germany and may be useful to estimate age-specific prevalence or incidence rates as well as to inform health promotion activities and modelling studies for MSM in Germany.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
