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

项目摘要/摘要 在全国范围内，超过四分之一的新的艾滋病毒感染发生在青少年和年轻人中，并且首当其冲 青年流行病是由与男性发生性行为的年轻黑人男子(YBMSM)传播的。HIV阳性的YBMSM 此外，他们还面临着参与程度不佳的高风险，这对个人 发病率和死亡率以及社区内的进一步传播。同时，以前的工作 在艾滋病毒阳性的YBMSM中表现出了显著的复原力和支持性的社会关系。这个 必须更好地了解YBMSM的独特优势和弱点，以便开发有效的 改善个人和公共健康结果的干预措施。 这项提案概述了一种寻求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与 青年男同性恋者对艾滋病毒护理的参与度。具体地说，我们将重点描述和增强 YBMSM的社会资本，我们将其定义为包含在一个 个人的社交网络。我们将首先对HIV阳性的YBMSM进行形成性研究，以及 来自社区的举报人，以更好地了解社会资本的来源和特点 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，以 通过让艾滋病毒阳性的YBMSM参与旨在社区的团体项目来增加他们的社会资本- 以行动为导向。最后，我们将在随机对照试验中对我们的干预措施进行试点测试，并评估其 可行性和可接受性及其对社会资本和艾滋病毒护理参与成果的影响。 我们正在提出一种独特的、基于优势的方法来加强青年男童子军对艾滋病毒护理的参与， 我们相信，我们利用以社区为基础的参与式方法将导致 这是一种在这一人群中可以接受和可持续的干预。如此新颖的改进策略 青年男童子军参与护理是促进个人健康和福祉的关键，预防 减少二次传播，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.