New campaign spurs conversations on HIV
Executive Summary
A new campaign, "Start Talking. Stop HIV," developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourages gay and bisexual men to talk openly with their sexual partners about HIV risk and prevention strategies.
• Getting such conversations going is important. Men who have sex with men, including those who inject drugs, continue to be the most severely affected group by HIV in the United States. They account for 57% of the 1.1 million people living with HIV and about 66% of all new HIV infections each year
• To tap into real-life concerns, the campaign was created in consultation with more than 500 gay and bisexual men. It is designed to reach men of all races and ethnicities in all types of relationships, whether casual or long-term.
A new campaign, "Start Talking. Stop HIV," developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), encourages gay and bisexual men to talk openly with their sexual partners about HIV risk and prevention strategies. Getting such conversations going is important. Men who have sex with men (MSM), including those who inject drugs, continue to be the most severely affected group by HIV in the United States. They account for 57% of the 1.1 million people living with HIV and about 66% of all new HIV infections each year.1
"Given the range of HIV prevention options available today, talking about HIV prevention has never been more important for gay and bisexual men," said Jonathan Mermin, MD, MPH, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, in a statement accompanying the campaign’s launch. "Only after having open and honest conversations can partners make informed choices about which strategies will work for them."
With more prevention options available today than ever before, the dialogue is more complex than it has ever been, says Nick DeLuca, PhD, branch chief of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. "It is critical that partners talk about HIV testing and their HIV status, as well as the full range of prevention strategies such as condoms and medicines that prevent and treat HIV, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), and antiretroviral therapy (ART)," notes DeLuca.
Research shows that communication between partners is associated with condom use, HIV testing, and status disclosure,2 says DeLuca.
Campaign reaches out
To tap into real-life concerns, the "Start Talking. Stop HIV" campaign was created in consultation with more than 500 gay and bisexual men.
It is designed to reach men of all races and ethnicities in all types of relationships, whether casual or long-term. (Visit the campaign web site at http://1.usa.gov/Ref0tz.) The campaign includes online and print advertisements, as well as social media outreach and online videos. (Go to the campaign’s Facebook page at http://on.fb.me/1vNpopD and Twitter page at http://bit.ly/1rCzADM.) It uses real-world individuals and couples to encourage gay and bisexual men to talk to their sexual partners about such issues as HIV testing and HIV status; safer sex practices, such as using condoms and lowering risky sexual behaviors; availability of prescription drugs for prevention and treatment of HIV; and how to maintain healthy relationships.
The campaign offers a wide assortment of resources, including posters, brochures, banners, videos, and cheat sheets. All are available for free download.
Go digital for young men
New research indicates digital outreach efforts delivered via text messages, interactive games, chat rooms, and social networks might be an effective way to reach at-risk younger men.3
Among adolescent males aged 13-19, about 91% of all diagnosed HIV infections are from male-to-male sexual contact, according to CDC estimates.4 Black young men who have sex with men are especially at risk. About two-thirds (63%) of all young men ages 13-24 who have sex with men who were diagnosed with HIV infection in 2009 were black.3 Black young men who have sex with men also experienced the largest increase of all racial/ethnic groups in diagnosed HIV infections, with numbers rising from 2,416 in 2006 to 3,777 in 2009.3
Why does technology offer potential as an effective prevention tool? Rebecca Schnall, PhD, RN, an assistant professor at Columbia University School of Nursing in New York, says young adults are "very used to technology, and there is built-in privacy and immediacy with digital communication that may be especially appealing to men who aren’t comfortable disclosing their sexual orientation or their HIV status in a face-to-face encounter." Schnall served as lead author of the current research.
To conduct the investigation, Schnall’s research team performed a systematic literature review to determine the effectiveness of ehealth interventions for HIV prevention among men who have sex with men. Studies included in the report had to be focused exclusively on e-health, limited to HIV prevention and testing rather than treatment, targeted only to adult men who have sex with men, written in English, designed as experimental or randomized controlled trials, and published between January 2000 and April 2014. The team’s review shows evidence that ehealth for HIV prevention in high-risk men who have sex with men has the potential to be effective in the short term for reducing HIV risk behaviors and increasing testing rates.
"If we want to reduce HIV infection rates, particularly among younger men, we need to explore the use of technology to meet them where they live: online and on their phones," Schnall said in a press statement accompanying the research publication.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Estimated HIV incidence among adults and adolescents in the United States, 20072010. HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report 2012; 17(4):7.
- Horvath KJ, Oakes JM, Rosser BR. Sexual negotiation and HIV serodisclosure among men who have sex with men with their online and offline partners. J Urban Health 2008; 85(5):744-758.
- Schnall R, Travers J, Rojas M, et al. Ehealth interventions for HIV prevention in high-risk men who have sex with men: a systematic review. J Med Internet Res 2014; 16(5):e134.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV and young men who have sex with men. Fact sheet. Accessed at http://1.usa.gov/1ksIoV8.
