Rising HIV infection rates have been recently occurring among Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) in the United States. As a result, promoting HIV testing among members of this population is now considered a priority among local and federal health officials. A study was conducted to explore concerns about HIV testing among BMSM in New York City. In early 2006, data were gathered from focus groups with 29 BMSM. Discussions revealed factors affecting HIV testing, including stigma, sexuality, religion, race, and class, emphasizing responsibility, testing concerns, and media influences, among others. Recommendations were submitted to New York City health officials to inform HIV testing and prevention efforts.
A key focus for improving efforts to engage the Black MSM community in preventive HIV clinical trials is building and maintaining equitable and reciprocal partnerships among research institutions, Black-led AIDS service organizations and community-based organizations, and community members.
Testing HIV prevention strategies requires that researchers recruit participants at high risk of HIV infection. Data from the EXPLORE Study, a behavioral intervention trial involving men who have sex with men, were used to examine the relationship between recruitment strategies and participant characteristics, sexual risk behaviors and HIV incidence. The EXPLORE Study used a wide variety of recruitment strategies; no one strategy accounted for more than 20% of enrolled men. Younger men and men of color were more likely to be recruited through club and bar outreach, friend referral and street outreach. Men reporting ten or more sexual partners were more likely to be recruited through advertising and street outreach. Men reporting unprotected sex were more likely to be recruited through clinic referrals. HIV incidence did not significantly differ by recruitment strategy. Our findings support the need for a wide range of recruitment strategies in attracting MSM at high risk for HIV into clinical studies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.