The risks of acquiring HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases may rise within ethnic minority groups with migration, travel and family ties to the Indian subcontinent, south-east Asia and the Caribbean, a study of sexual lifestyles in Britain says today.

The frequency of HIV infection in black African communities is already put down in part to recent migration from sub-Saharan Africa, and government-funded research suggests there may be further problems facing communities and public health officials in the UK.

The study by University College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the National Centre for Social Research, involved questioning more than 12,000 people, aged 16 to 44, across five main ethnic groups.

It found that one in 13 men from the black ethnic groups reported an STI within the last five years. The figure for white men was one in 34 and for Indians and Pakistanis fewer than one in 50.