Recruitment approaches to identifying newly diagnosed HIV infection among African American men who have sex with men

Abstract

Summary

To determine effectiveness of alternate venue testing (AVT), social network strategy (SNS) and provider referral (PR) for identifying previously undiagnosed HIV-infected 18–64-year-old African American men who have sex with men (AA MSM) by a health department. For AVT, staff used a mobile clinic to conduct HIV testing. For PR, staff solicited contact information from HIV-infected AA MSM, located contacts and offered HIV testing. For SNS, HIV-positive AA MSM recruited network associates for HIV testing. Two hundred and eighteen self-identified AA MSM were tested through AVT (25.2% HIV positivity) of whom 20 were newly identified HIV-positive. Fourteen HIV-positive men participated in SNS; 22 AA MSM contacts were recruited through SNS, eight (36.4%) were HIV positive and none were new positives. Two HIV-infected men participated in the PR strategy, yielding two AA MSM sex partners (one previously positive). The results suggest the need for health departments to consider using several complimentary strategies for identifying previously undiagnosed HIV infections in AA MSM in urban environments such as Baltimore.