The Helping Networks of Transgender Women Living with HIV

Abstract

Transgender women living with HIV face significant barriers to healthcare that may be best addressed through community-centered interventions holistically focused on their HIV-related, gender-related, and other important needs. Community health ambassador (CHA) interventions (education and training programs designed to engage communities and community leaders in health promotion) may be an effective option, though information about the natural helping networks of this vulnerable population is too limited to inform the implementation of this approach. This study uses social network analysis to describe the natural helping networks of transgender women living with HIV, their help-seeking patterns for HIV-related, gender-related, and ancillary resources, and the characteristics of potential network ambassadors. From February to August 2019, transgender women living with HIV in the US (N = 231) participated a 30-min online survey asking them to describe their natural helping networks (N = 1054). On average, participants were embedded within natural helping networks consisting of 4–5 people. They were more likely to seek help from informal network members vs. formal service providers (p < .01), and from chosen family and partners/spouses (p < .05) above other social connections. Older network members (p < .01), other transgender women (p < .05), and those with whom they regularly engaged face-to-face (p < .01) (vs. social technology) were identified as potential network ambassadors for HIV-, gender-related, and other important issues. These findings suggest an opportunity to develop CHA interventions that leverage existing help networks and potential network ambassadors to promote equitable access to HIV, gender-affirming, and other crucial resources among this medically underserved group.

Both/And: Mixed methods analysis of network composition, communication patterns, and socio-economic support within social networks of transgender women in Lima, Peru

“…This support was often described as bidirectional between respondents and other TW in their network. Our results contribute to existing literature describing the social support provided by TW networks and provide additional detail about speci c types of support and directionality of support that ultimately contributes to the formation of unique social structures and generation of social capital in these networks (12,37). Our results suggest a cycle of knowledge sharing and support exchange in which more experienced TW helped to educate and integrate younger TW or those new to the community who then went on to provide various types of support to their other network members, including other TW, families, and partners.…”