Which gay men should be the target for prevention work?
August 8th, 2008Roger Peabody commented at AIDSMAP on two presentations made at the XVIIth International AIDS Conference by Gibbie and Mayer who “suggested a range of approaches for better defining the characteristics of gay men who are at greatest risk of being involved in HIV exposure or transmission, and who can be targeted for HIV prevention interventions.”
This is a first step towards designing interventions that would reach those most at risk of being infected by HIV but it also reveals two more caveats with targeted interventions. The first is the unconscious admission that even within a group of most at risk people there are some who are even more at risk, making interventions even more difficult to design.
The screening tool designed by Gibbie et al. would help identifying those who are at even greater risk of being infected with HIV but this is where the second caveat emerges; it can only be used in primary care settings with men of whom many are already HIV positive (in their Australian sample it was 35%) and for whom it is too late to prevent infection, but not too late to stop it spreading to other.
It is also worth pointing out that MSM who are already using primary care are there for a reason and that they could, and should, already received information or attention without looking to further indications that they are in need of support.
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