Social Capital and Engagement in Care Among Young Black Men who have Sex with Men Living with HIV

项目总结/摘要 在全国范围内，超过四分之一的新艾滋病毒感染发生在青少年和年轻人中， 青年流行病是由与男性发生性关系的年轻黑人男子（YBMSM）携带的。艾滋病毒阳性YBMSM 此外，他们在护理方面的参与度不佳的风险很高，这对个人健康有影响。 发病率和死亡率以及在社区内的进一步传播。同时，前期工作 在艾滋病毒阳性的YBMSM中表现出显著的弹性和支持性的社会关系。的 必须更好地了解YBMSM的独特优势和弱点，以便制定有效的 改善个人和公共卫生结果的干预措施。 该提案概述了一种方法，旨在将基于社区的参与性研究与 临床研究方法，以了解社会网络特征之间的关系， 参与YBMSM中的艾滋病毒护理。具体来说，我们将专注于表征和增强 YBMSM的社会资本，我们定义为包含在一个社会中的实际和潜在资源的总和。 个人的社交网络。我们将首先对艾滋病毒阳性的YBMSM以及关键的 来自社会的信息提供者，以更好地了解社会资本的来源和特征， YBMSM。接下来，在青年社区咨询委员会的指导下，我们将制定一项干预措施， * 让艾滋病毒阳性青年、双性恋和变性者参与旨在社区的团体项目， 导向的行动。最后，我们将在一项随机对照试验中对我们的干预措施进行初步测试，并评估其 可行性和可接受性，以及对社会资本和艾滋病毒护理参与成果的影响。 我们提出了一个独特的，基于优势的方法，以加强艾滋病毒护理之间的YBMSM参与， 我们相信，我们利用以社区为基础的参与性方法， 在这一人群中是可接受和可持续的干预措施。这些新的策略， YBMSM之间的护理参与是至关重要的，以促进个人健康和福祉， 二次传播，减少健康差距。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Nationally, over one-quarter of new HIV infections occur in adolescents and young adults, and the brunt of this youth epidemic is being borne by young Black men who have sex with men (YBMSM). HIV-positive YBMSM are additionally at high risk for suboptimal engagement in care, which has implications for individual morbidity and mortality as well as further transmission within the community. At the same time, prior work has demonstrated significant resilience and supportive social relationships among HIV-positive YBMSM. The unique strengths and vulnerabilities of YBMSM must be better understood in order to develop effective interventions that improve individual and public health outcomes. This proposal outlines an approach that seeks to integrate community-based participatory research with clinical research methods in order to understand the relationships between social network characteristics and engagement in HIV care among YBMSM. Specifically, we will focus on characterizing and augmenting YBMSM’s social capital, which we define as the sum of actual and potential resources contained in an individual’s social network. We will first conduct formative research with HIV-positive YBMSM as well as key informants from the community, to better understand the sources and characteristics of social capital among YBMSM. Next, with the guidance of a youth community advisory board, we will develop an intervention to augment social capital among HIV-positive YBMSM by engaging them in group projects aimed at community- oriented action. Finally, we will pilot test our intervention in a randomized controlled trial and assess its feasibility and acceptability as well as its impact on social capital and HIV care engagement outcomes. We are proposing a unique, strengths-based approach to augmenting HIV care engagement among YBMSM, and we believe that our utilization of community-based participatory methods will lead to the development of an intervention which is acceptable and sustainable in this population. Such novel strategies for improving engagement in care among YBMSM are critically needed to promote individual health and well-being, prevent secondary transmission, and decrease health disparities.