Would anyone be interested in starting a dialogue about risky sexual behavior? I am gay, and a behvior specialist and am interested in learning why people feel gay men engage in risky sexual behavior with eachother.
It seems a lot of prevention work is focused on providing information and access to testing (which is absolutely necessary), but I can't seem to find any quantifiable data on behavior patterns of gay men who engage in risky sex.
If anyone has any information, thoughts, resources on the subject I would be grateful to hear from you. :)
Thanks.
It seems a lot of prevention work is focused on providing information and access to testing (which is absolutely necessary), but I can't seem to find any quantifiable data on behavior patterns of gay men who engage in risky sex.
If anyone has any information, thoughts, resources on the subject I would be grateful to hear from you. :)
Thanks.
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Mexico
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Rob,
Because I teach kids AIDS prevention, we don't address sexual orientation (because we don't want the kids to self-select out "oh, that's a GAY disease, I don't have to worry")--in Baltimore: we are the 17th most populated city in the US, with the 2nd highest incidence of HIV infection, less than 20% of it men having sex with men (we have more than a slight IV drug use problem here).
But I do in fact facilitate programs about risky behavior, decision-making, etc. The "whys" rather than the "hows".
I'd love to have a discussion about it; perhaps we could find some overlap.
Betsy
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I think this discussion is neccesary in the right light..I don't want to get into a "how can we get "them" to stop doing X" or how can we "fix" this problem.
I think the place where prevention has fallen short is to encourage Gay Men, hell anyone to feel empowered, and important enough to chose healthy choices.
There will always be times when everyone makes a choice towards the unhealthy. Everyone.. We must accept this about ourselves. and work from the understandin that it's all about choices and responsibility.. Not guilt and shame. -
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Vince: ABSOLUTELY! In our program we talk about decision-making, risky behavior, communication...and have speakers who are infected with/affected by HIV/AIDS to be a living example for the kids.
Since 50% of all new infections remain kids ages 13-24, and they clearly have the information, we need to continue to try to help them become aware, self-loving, and feel empowered. -
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I agree with you 100%. My problem is that I can't seem to find any quantafiable data or studies to show that self-esteem as having a measurable effect on HIV prevention.
Almost everyone I know or talk to about the subject agrees that self-esteem are absolutely necessary in preventing HIV but I can't find any real data.
Any tips?
Frustrated in Seattle. :) -
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Well, I would encourage you to do the study yourself.. I agree, there isn't hard evidence.
It was gay men's anectdotal evidence that lead to believe AIDS was sexually transmitted at least in part. I think all smart ideas start with "I can really see this happening in my community"....
Now we just have to get the data to back up what we are seeing all around us. -
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That's something I've been considering. I just don't know where to begin. I've never actually conducted a scientific study before. I don't know much about designing and planning a scientific study. I suppose the first thing to do would be to start READING scientific studies instead of just looking at their statistics. At least that will give me an idea of what constitutes a scientific study.
If anyone would like to offer assistance, please let me know.
Thanks.
Rob -
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Well, there are several ways to do studies, but for something like this, it would be more of the survey type. In other words, you give specific surveys to the people you want to study, with specific questions. Then you collect the surveys, analyse them statistically, and see if what you think is correct is statistically significant to say "yes, my hypothesis is right"....I believe that's the easiest and cheapest way to do behavioral studies...
you coud also contact your local university's psych depart as well for more ideas... -
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Thanks YankeeDyke. :)
I think contacting the University research department and seeing if I can't get them on board with a study is a great idea.
Here's what I think would be my "dream study":
Get 100 gay men in my community to agree to participate in a three-year long study. The men selected to participate would have similar social qualities and behaviors. All the men would have to be HIV negative. (A seperate study could be done with HIV positive men, but this particular one would focus on HIV negative)
Half of them would be the study group, and the other half would be the control group.
The entire group would complete lenghty questionnaires about their current health and life-style.
The study group would then participate in group activities with each other, volunteer together on projects, attend community workshops & forums, parties, and other socially interactive activities designed to build friendships amoung them and a sense of community.
The cotrol group would simply be left alone for the most part, but would be followed-up with every 6 months and asked about their social activities.
At the end of three years, the behavior patterns, HIV status, and overal health of the each group would measured and compared to the original statistics to see if either group had a signifigant change.
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So what do you think? Is this something I could take to a university? Anybody have experience doing research studies? Your comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. -
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-a survey re: self-esteem would need to be a part of this study in order to see if there's a correlation...and might I suggest more than one study? I think it's important to study gay men, but here in Baltimore they estimate that less than 20% of infection is via MSM (we seem to have an out-of-control IV drug abuse problem here).
Also...there would be some variables involved in determining status. 1. if someone is tested for the study during the time between infection and when the antibodies actually show up (anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months, sometimes more), that might throw it off. 2. if someone in the control group gets infected during the study, that would also need to be considered.
You could probably do a Net search to find out who would be interested in supporting this...try thebody.com and Kaiser Family Foundation.
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Save your self the trouble of making your own stats. Check out The Mpowerment Project www.mpowerment.org -- this program at UCSF has spent years examing the issue and developing a prevention methodology based on community-building and self-esteem.
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