Determinants of Recent HIV Infection Among Seattle-Area Men Who Have Sex with Men

Abstract

There is a need to improve efforts to promote condom use with casual partners, regardless of their partner's HIV status. New strategies to control methamphetamine use in MSM and to reduce risk behaviors related to meeting partners at high-risk venues are needed.

Why the Wait? Delayed HIV Diagnosis among Men Who Have Sex with Men

“…[23][24][25][26] To lessen recall bias, participants were asked to recall details about sex partners and risk behaviors during the past 6 months rather than a longer period of time. Third, due to the small sample size and the recruitment locations, 17 the study population may not be representative of MSM in the broader community who are recently diagnosed with HIV. Finally, there are potential limitations in our use of a cross-sectional design and the associated classification of delayed and non-delayed testers.…”

“…Recruitment and study procedures have been detailed elsewhere. 17 Briefly, potential participants were passively referred to the study after testing for HIV at the PHSKC sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and HIV/AIDS Program (HAP) clinics, HAP community outreach testing sites, and two university HIV clinics. MSM were eligible if they were age 18 or older, reported sex with men during the preceding 6 months, and were able to complete the interview in English.…”

“…15 Given the high prevalence of HIV among MSM 2 and evidence of increasing numbers of new cases in recent years, 16 it is important to understand the factors associated with delayed testing among MSM to improve early diagnosis, get more HIV-positive MSM into care, and help reduce the spread of HIV among MSM. Using qualitative and quantitative data from the Seattle Area MSM Study (SAMS), 17 we sought to identify sociodemographic, behavioral, and testing history factors that distinguish MSM with delayed HIV diagnosis (delayed testers), defined as being diagnosed with HIV 6 months or more after HIV infection, from MSM with non-delayed HIV diagnosis (non-delayed testers), being diagnosed with HIV within 6 months of HIV infection. Due to the limited number of persons with new HIV diagnoses included in SAMS, we consider this report to be a preliminary look at delayed diagnosis among urban MSM.…”

Drug Use, High-Risk Sex Behaviors, and Increased Risk for Recent HIV Infection among Men who Have Sex with Men in Chicago and Los Angeles

“…Methamphetamine is commonly used in conjunction with sexual risk-taking (Buchacz et al 2005;Hirshfield et al 2004;Molitor et al 1998;Paul et al 2005;Shoptaw et al 2005;Thiede et al 2008). In a longitudinal study of urban MSM, Koblin and her colleagues (Koblin et al 2006) reported that use of amphetamines nearly doubled a study participant's chance of HIV seroconversion (hazard ratio of 1.96), but use of marijuana, poppers, hallucinogens, or cocaine or crack were not associated with seroconversion in multivariate analyses.…”

“…However, advances in HIV testing have made it easier to distinguish individuals with evidence of recent HIV infection from persons infected at an unknown time in the past (Janssen et al 1998;Kothe et al 2003;Rawal et al 2003). By using these assays, it is possible to design studies that can identify factors associated with recent HIV infection (Thiede et al 2008).…”