Fenway and the MAC launch study on black gay men and HIV

Fenway Health's Ben Perkins is looking for a few good black gay and bi men. To be specific, he's looking for 330 of them. Perkins and the Fenway, working in collaboration with the Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC), have launched the recruitment phase of a new study aimed at learning more about the sexual health of black gay and bi men and finding effective strategies for HIV prevention within the black gay community. The study, called Project Saving Ourselves (SOS), is the Boston arm of a six-city study that is also collecting data on black gay and bi male sexual health and HIV prevention from New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Perkins said despite longstanding evidence that black gay and bi men are at a disproportionately high risk of HIV infection, this is the first study on HIV prevention of its size to focus exclusively on that population.

"This is pretty new. In terms of the scale, there hasn't been anything quite like it," he said.

Perkins, who is the Project SOS director at the Fenway Institute, Fenway Health's research division, said there are several questions about black gay and bi male health and HIV prevention that researchers hope to learn more about over the course of the study. Among them are how to increase HIV testing rates and how to lower rates of untreated sexually transmitted infections among gay and bi black men. Perkins said researchers also hope to learn about black male sexual networks, since research shows many black gay and bi men primarily have other black sexual partners. As part of the effort to study those networks, researchers will ask the 330 participants to recruit an additional 70 participants from their own circles, bringing the total number of participants up to 400.

The final question posed by the study is how to get black gay and bi men who are HIV-positive into care earlier, since earlier treatment often leads to better health outcomes. As part of that effort many study participants will be paired up with "peer navigators," Fenway and MAC staff whom Perkins describes as "essentially like a buddy who works with the individual to get them into care services." The navigators will help connect participants to services such as doctors, substance abuse programs, psychotherapy and other services, with the goal of treating the HIV-infection of positive participants and improving the overall health of all the men taking part in the study.

Researchers are working to recruit a diverse group of study participants, including those who are HIV positive and negative. Perkins said participants might use a variety of labels to describe themselves.

"We are using the term 'men who have sex with men.' ... That could include guys who identify as gay, as same-gender loving, as bisexual, guys who do not identify, all of it. It's the broadest universe of male sexual behavior," said Perkins.

Study participants will come in for three study visits: one when they enroll, another after six months, and a final visit after a year. At each visit participants will take a computer-assisted survey covering a range of topics including stigma and discrimination, substance abuse, childhood sexual abuse, religion and spirituality. Perkins said the goal of the surveys is to determine which factors in the men's lives put them at risk for HIV-infection and which factors help promote good health and safe behavior. At each visit participants will also be given the option of taking an HIV test.

Beyond the three visits, those participants assigned to peer navigators also may meet with the navigators independently.

"Someone could see a health navigator 10 or 20 times in that year," said Perkins.

For the next year, the Fenway and the MAC will be engaged in recruiting participants. The study visits will begin next year. Researchers will advertise in publications like Bay Windows, the Weekly Dig, and the Boston Metro, as well as online. Researchers will also attend community events and reach out to community-based agencies to find participants.

"We are using lots of different methods. We're casting a very wide net," said Perkins. "Some of it will be gay, GLBT-focused, but some of it won't be. Some of it may be more racially [and] ethnically focused."

For more information on the Project SOS study call 877.767.5434.