HIV disproportionately impacts young men of color who have sex with men. Keep It Up! (KIU!) is an online intervention that addresses the needs of this population. The study objective was to examine intervention acceptability and engagement. Outcomes of interests were qualitative and quantitative acceptability and engagement measures, content ratings, and paradata. On average, participants rated content (4 out of 5 stars) and acceptability (3.5 out of 4) highly. Compared to White participants, Black participants found KIU! more useful, engaging, and acceptable; Latino participants found KIU! more engaging; and other non-White participants found KIU! more engaging and acceptable. Participants with high school or less education found KIU! more useful, engaging, acceptable, and deserving of five stars than college graduates (p values = .047, <.001, .002, .01) and graduate degree holders (p values = .04, .001, <.001, .004). KIU! is a promising prevention tool for highest risk populations.
The Bear community exists as a subculture in reaction to the larger gay community. It rejects the normative idealized male beauty revered by mainstream gay men. While qualitative data document such self-identifiers as masculine-acting gay men who weigh more and have more body hair, there has to date been no quantitative analysis of this group’s characteristics. In response, we conducted two large-scale studies of gay men identifying as Bears (n = 469) to survey their self-reported physical, behavioral, and psychological traits. Our studies indicated that Bears were more likely to be hairier, heavier, and shorter than mainstream gay men. They reported wanting partners who were hairier and heavier. They were less likely to reject sexual partners and the partners they did reject were more likely to be young or weigh too little (i.e., were not bearish). Bears were more likely than mainstream gay men to enact diverse sexual behaviors (e.g., fisting, voyeurism) and were comparatively more masculine. Bears had lower self-esteem but were no less (or more) hypermasculine than non-Bears. We concluded that Bears are intensely sexual. We speculate that Bears are viewed as less attractive than what is traditionally considered to be attractive. The partners they can attract may be limited and, in response to this limitation, they may be particularly attuned to seek out partners who will not reject them. This condition may produce the low self-esteem exhibited and may explain how the Bear culture developed to ensure that even the heaviest, hairiest, and/or shortest individual can partner. Future analyses of the community’s health are warranted.
Students in the Community (SITC) is an interprofessional collaboration of health science students at the University of Washington. SITC runs a weekly free clinic at the Aloha Inn, a transitional housing facility for 70 homeless men and women in downtown Seattle. The focus of this clinic is on health education, chronic disease management, and re-integration of patients into the healthcare infrastructure. SITC serves as a valuable service learning opportunity for students. In addition to direct clinical services, students gain experience in planning health education strategies, community collaboration, and evaluating intervention outcomes. SITC also oversees a lecture and discussion-based elective course at the University of Washington focused on health issues of the homeless community and provides formal teaching which complements the service-learning component of the endeavor.
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