Just because it’s over, doesn’t mean we’re done!
The three months of surveying flew by, but now it’s time to dig down into what we collected. We travelled all around the motu asking people to fill out the survey. This year, 3203 of you gave us your time and told us your experiences. Because of that we will be able to continue to advocate on your behalf for better access to HIV PrEP and PEP, and for better sexual health services across the board. We’d also like to take the time to thank our fieldworkers, and partner organisations including Burnett Foundation Aotearoa, Body Positive, and all the organisers of the Pride Events and venue managers who allowed us to run the survey.
Information from the previous survey has already been used extensively to benefit our communities. Using SPOTS 22 data, we’ve published 35 academic articles, reports, briefs, theses, and submission, presented at 36 local and international conferences, and even held a symposium with 120 delegates from across the world! You can see more results from the previous round of SPOTS here - and if you’d like to keep up with SPOTS news and developments, sign up using the email link below!
What comes next?
Soon it will be time to start telling you what we found out. But before we can do that, we need to know what you want to know! There’s so much SPOTS 25 data, but we need to separate the nerdy stuff from the stuff that you guys will find interesting. Fill out the survey linked above and tell us what you want to know! You’ll also be in to win one of two $100 vouchers!
What ever happened with the blood donation policy from last time?
Medsafe has approved the Blood Service's application to move towards individually assessing each donor, rather than a blanket policy making men who had sex with men in the last three months ineligible to donate due to the risk of HIV.
"SPOTS data shows that four out of five gay and bisexual men in NZ wanted to donate blood if the rules were changed and they were allowed to donate," says SPOTS Principal Investigator Dr Peter Saxton.
"Importantly, our data suggest this would be safe for blood recipients. We found no participants with confirmed undiagnosed HIV. Therefore, we are delighted that SPOTS participants are helping improve NZ's blood donor policy."
What’s SPOTS all about?
SPOTS 2025 has closed - sign up for email updates above to get involved in future rounds!
What are we researching?
This study is about sex between men and HIV in Aotearoa New Zealand, led by the University of Auckland in partnership with Burnett Foundation Aotearoa. The last time we conducted a study like this was in 2022. Now, we aim to see what has changed. A key focus of the 2025 survey is to improve our understanding of how men who have sex with men (MSM) reduce their HIV risks and manage their sexual health. This includes understanding the use of existing tools like condoms, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), testing and achieving an undetectable HIV viral load (U=U). We are also interested in learning how MSM are engaging with newer prevention tools, such as doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis (DoxyPEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), and Mpox vaccinations.
Who can take part?
Men who have sex with men (MSM), including cis and trans men, who are aged 16 or older and live in Aotearoa NZ. You can also take part if you are a trans women or non-binary person and have sex with MSM, or if you identify as a gay, bisexual, queer or pansexual man but have never had sex with a man.
Participants can be of any HIV status, ethnicity, region, relationship status, out/not out, new to the scene or long-time members of the community. We want to hear from everyone so your voices can inform future decisions about our community's health and inclusion!
How can people take part?
We are inviting eligible people to complete a voluntary, anonymous electronic survey asking participants about their sexual activity and risk reduction approaches. It should take between 8-20 minutes.