Welcome to our first issue of 2014. UK readers will have followed with interest the recent publication of the 3rd National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal—see natsal.ac.uk), which coincided with World AIDS day 2013. Population surveys however have their limitations—particularly in their ability to describe in useful detail minority sexual practices. These need to be explored through customised surveys using targeted recruitment, or through data collection systems of sufficiently large scale to capture useful numbers of these groups.

Two populations in which Natsal has limited power are men who have sex with men (MSM) and sex workers of both genders. Improving data quality in GUMCAD, the electronic records based surveillance system for genitourinary medicine in England, is enabling improving power and accuracy in the study of vulnerable minority populations. McGrath-Lone and colleagues1 report on the sexual health of male …