Prevalence of syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections in men and transgender women who have sex with men in Cali, Colombia

项目总结 性传播感染(STI)仍然是困扰数百万人的主要公共卫生问题 世界各地的人们。性少数群体和性别少数群体(SGM)，包括男男性行为者(MSM)和 变性妇女，承担着很高的性传播疾病负担，同时报告更高的风险因素，经济 边缘化、社会排斥和污名化，阻碍他们获得预防性和 性传播感染的治疗选择。在哥伦比亚，有关性传播感染流行的信息很少。 或与获得和传播性传播感染有关的风险因素。目前的提案纳入了 应答者驱动抽样招募一组变性妇女和男男性接触者进行性传播感染检测 而这些地区的风险评估往往很难接触到人群。该项目将使用RDS获取数据以 评估男男性接触者和其他性传播疾病在预防、诊断和治疗性传播感染方面未得到满足的需求 人口。它还将促进变性人妇女加入我们的U-19梅毒项目。这个 我们研究的核心假设是，在男男性接触者和与之发生性关系的变性女性中 在哥伦比亚卡利的其他男性中，梅毒、淋病、衣原体、 人乳头瘤病毒和病毒性肝炎。为了检验我们的假设，我们建议使用受访者驱动抽样来 估算性传播感染在男男性行为者和男男性接触者中的流行情况，哥伦比亚卡利。 此外，我们将量化这些性健康、知识、态度和行为的指标 人口。我们的论点是，这种方法将掩盖隐藏的负担和未得到满足的性 这些人群的健康需求，并将使政策制定者、卫生保健提供者和当地 社区通过干预计划根据这些信息采取行动。

PROJECT SUMMARY Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to be a major public health problem afflicting millions of people worldwide. Sexual and gender minorities (SGM), including men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women, bear a high burden of STIs, while reporting higher rates of risk factors, economic marginalization, social exclusion, and stigmatization which hinders their access to preventive and therapeutic options for STIs. Little information is available in Colombia regarding the prevalence of STIs in SGMs or the risk factors linked to acquiring and transmitting STIs. The current proposal incorporates the use of Respondent Driven Sampling to recruit a group of transgender women and MSM for STI testing and risk assessment in these often hard to reach populations. This project will use RDS to obtain data to assess the unmet need for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of STIs in MSM and other SGM populations. It will also facilitate enrollment of transgender women into our U-19 syphilis project. The central overarching hypothesis of our study is that in MSM and transgender women who have sex with other men in Cali, Colombia there is a high, unrecognized prevalence of syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HPV, and viral hepatitis. To test our hypothesis, we propose to use Respondent Driven Sampling to estimate the prevalence of STIs in MSM and transgender women who have sex with men, in Cali, Colombia. In addition, we will quantify metrics of sexual health, knowledge, attitudes and practices of these populations. It is our contention that this approach will undercover the hidden burden and unmet sexual health needs of these populations and will allow policy makers, health care providers and the local community to act upon this information through intervention planning.