SPOTS (Sex and Prevention Of Transmission Study) is Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest HIV behavioural surveillance study based out of Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, run in partnership with Burnett Foundation Aotearoa.
We are funded through the National HIV Action Plan 2023-2030 to understand behaviours related to HIV and STI prevention and treatment among MSM (including trans and takatāpui). Data we collect are used by sexual health services and organisations such as Burnett to design services and public health messaging and helps us reach zero local HIV transmissions by 2030.
SPOTS builds on previous HIV behavioural surveillance studies GAPSS (Gay Auckland Periodic Sex Survey) and GOSS (Gay men’s Online Sex Survey). The survey runs every few years with previous rounds in 2022 and 2025, our next round is planned for 2027. Subscribe to our mailing list below to stay in the loop on research and survey development!
NZ Blood Service announces changes to sexual health screening questions
Date posted: 28 April 2026
The New Zealand Blood Service has announced it will introduce changes to its sexual health screening rules on the 4th May 2026. To read more about these changes and how we got there, read the Blood Service’s press release, SPOTS 22 page, or the University of Auckland’s press release. If you’re interested in donating on or before the change on the 4th May, you can check your eligibility and complete the pre-donation checklist at nzblood.co.nz.
Summary tables are out!
Date posted: 16 February 2026
We’ve now published our summary tables report, which lays out all the responses to SPOTS 25, collated together with to all the other HIV behavioural surveillance we’ve run right back to 2002! Thank you to all 3,203 SPOTS 25 respondents for giving us their time and experience, and thank you to everyone who worked to gather the data and compile it into this report.
In publishing this report, we aim to stimulate interest in additional research and encourage engagement in the findings. If you’d like to talk to us about the data, message us via the ‘contact us’ page listed below.
Please note: The summary tables report presents SPOTS, GAPPS, and GOSS data together without statistical analysis. Therefore, caution must be exercised when interpreting results.
What Next? The summary tables report is only the beginning, we can now start doing more in-depth analysis of the data and learn more about MSM, including trans and takatāpui, in Aotearoa New Zealand. We already have a number of research reports and papers in the pipeline. If you’d like to stay in the loop on our mahi, subscribe to our mailing list at the bottom of the page. If you want to see what other research we’ve put out, check out our Findings or the SPOTS 22 pages.
