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Patterns of Social Affiliations and Healthcare Engagement Among Young, Black, Men Who Have Sex With Men

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Abstract

Little work has examined how individuals’ social affiliations—the venues in which they meet friends and engage in informal social interaction—influence their engagement with public health services. We investigate how links to these local places shape access to information and exposure to health-seeking behavior. Using longitudinal data from a respondent-driven sample of 618 young black men who have sex with men (YBMSM) in Chicago, we identify different sets of social venues that connect YBMSM. We then examine how YBMSM’s connections within this network influence their receipt of HIV prevention and treatment services and knowledge of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Our results show that YBMSM’s positions within Chicago’s venue network shape the types of health-related services they access, net of demographic, structural, and community covariates. Men with affiliations that are linked to the city’s gay enclave are most likely to know about PrEP, while men with affiliations that are predominately in the black community demonstrate improved HIV treatment outcomes. Outreach engaging MSM beyond venues in gay enclaves is needed.

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Acknowledgements

Data from this project were collected with financial support from the National Institutes of Health (R01 DA033875). Support for this research was also provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R36 HS024167-01) and the National Institutes of Health (R01 MH100021). The content of this paper is the responsibility of the authors and does not reflect the official views of the AHRQ or the NIH. We thank all study respondents for participating. We also thank Alexander Currit, Adam Jonas, Aditya Khanna, Keith Green, Nicola Lancki and other members of the UConnect study team for their advice throughout the research process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Rachel L. Behler

  2. Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Benjamin T. Cornwell

  3. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    John A. Schneider

  4. Chicago Center for HIV Elimination, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    John A. Schneider

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  1. Rachel L. Behler
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Correspondence to Rachel L. Behler.

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IRB approval from the University of Chicago and National Opinion Research Center was granted prior to the first wave of UConnect data collection in 2013.

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Informed consent was obtained from all study participants and was a criterion for participation in the UConnect study. Participants were only eligible if they were able to provide informed consent at the time of the study visit.

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Behler, R.L., Cornwell, B.T. & Schneider, J.A. Patterns of Social Affiliations and Healthcare Engagement Among Young, Black, Men Who Have Sex With Men. AIDS Behav 22, 806–818 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-016-1668-3

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