Strategies for Identifying African American MSM Unaware of Their HIV Status

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this project is to assess the effectiveness of different strategies in identifying at-risk African American Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) who are unaware of their status and bringing them into Counseling, Testing, and Referral Services. These objectives directly meet the goal delineated in CDC's 'Advancing HIV Prevention: New Strategies for a Changing Epidemic" initiative, launched in 2003, to reduce barriers to early diagnosis of HIV and to increase access to quality medical care, treatment, and ongoing Prevention services. The specific aims of this project are to evaluate the activities of the current Partner Counseling and Referral Services (PCRS) activities at Us Helping Us, People Into Living, Inc. in Washington, DC (the community- based partner for this work), implement and evaluate new social network and alternate venue testing strategies, and compare these strategies' effectiveness in reaching the target population. Formative research will be used to guide the development of the social network and alternate venue testing strategies in order to ensure that these enhanced approaches are appropriate and feasible within the community. This project will also work with Us Helping Us to redesign their current data collection methods in order to gather information that can most clearly and accurately respond to the study aims. This research is relevant to public health in that undiagnosed HIV infection in general, and among African American MSM in particular, remains a significant issue. Early knowledge of HIV status is critical to accessing appropriate and effective medical services, including antiretroviral therapies. In addition, awareness of HIV infection can reduce transmission of HIV, and by doing so, is critical to HIV prevention efforts. This research contributes to the field of public health by assessing the effectiveness of three different strategies -- Partner Counseling and Referral Services (PCRS), social networks, and alternate venue testing -- in identifying at-risk African American Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) who are unaware of their HIV status.