Vending machines could improve access to sexual health testing

Press release issued: 6 February 2024

Vending machines dispensing test kits for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) could be useful for improving access to sexual health testing for people who have never tested or don’t test often. Users valued machines for their convenience, ease of use and instant access, although return rates were lower compared to postal kits.

In 2022 the sexual health services led by University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust introduced four vending machines for HIV and STI testing in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire and seven machines across Brighton and Hove.

Researchers from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration West (NIHR ARC West), the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Behavioural Science and Evaluation (HPRU) at the University of Bristol, the University of Sussex and Brighton, and Sussex Medical School then evaluated the service. They found that the machines were especially popular among young people and gay, bisexual and other men-who-have-sex-with-men. Uptake was high, which suggests people saw vending machines in public settings as acceptable.

Read the story on the NIHR ARC West website

Paper: Gobin M et al. (2024). Acceptability of digital vending machines to access STI and HIV tests in two UK cities. Sexually Transmitted Infections.