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Latino gay men in the US

The ever changing mosaic of Latino demographics in the US creates unique challenges to address health disparities of the population, especially when it comes to HIV prevention needs. Latinos are the largest and fastest growing ethno racial minority group in the US, experiencing a 43% growth between 2000 and 2010. Data also show that Latinos are one of the fastest growing populations at risk for HIV transmission:
  • Latino men who have sex with men (MSM*) represent 81% of new infections among Latino men, and 19% among all MSM2
  • Latinos are 16% of the US population, but make up 17% of living HIV/ AIDS cases and 20% of new HIV infections each year
  • Youth (ages 13-29) accounted for 45% of new HIV infections among Latino MSM. In light of these data there is a need to identify culturally-specific health concerns of Latino gay men so that effective interventions may be developed to address current and prevent future disparities.
The US National HIV/AIDS Strategy highlights the call for HIV programs that reduce health inequities among both ethnoracial and sexual minority populations. Latino gay men have distinct cross-cultural identities that place them into both prioritized categories.
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Black women

Black women and men in the US are hard hit by HIV, and have been since the beginning of the epidemic. In 2006, Black women accounted for 61% of new HIV cases among women, but make up only 12% of US female population. The rate of HIV diagnoses for Black women is 15 times the rate for White women. Black women also have high rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which can facilitate transmission of HIV. Among Black women in 2006, the rate of chlamydia was 7 times higher, gonorrhea 14 times higher, and syphilis 16 times higher than the rate among White women. These numbers and statistics, however, don’t show the richness and diversity of Black women’s lives. Black women can be White collar and working class, Christians and Muslims. They live in inner-city and suburban neighborhoods, are the descendants of slaves and recent Caribbean immigrants. They work, go to school, raise families, fall in love. HIV among Black women is not simply about individual behavior, but a complex system of social, cultural, economic, geographic, religious and political factors that combine to affect health.

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A novel condom distribution program for county jail prisoners

Correctional facilities concentrate populations that are at risk for HIV infection: persons of color, persons with substance abuse histories, and persons living in poverty.1,2 As a result, the prevalence of HIV among US incarcerated populations is five to seven times that of the general US population.3,4 Furthermore, about 25% of people living with HIV in the US have been incarcerated.5 These statistics support the need for access to effective means of HIV prevention and harm reduction strategies in correctional facilities. Condoms are highly effective at preventing the transmission of HIV.6 Despite the fact that there is a growing consensus that in-custody HIV transmission is not trivial,7 condoms are made available to only a minute fraction of the US prisoner population. The manner in which condoms are currently made available to prisoners in California varies widely. In the Los Angeles County Jail, the Center for Health Justice distributes condoms to a segregated gay male population only, one condom per week by request. In San Francisco, prior to this project, condoms were distributed by request through the Forensic AIDS Project’s public health staff in one-on-one health counseling sessions, one per person, per request.
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Stress and Coping in Gay Male Caregivers of Men with AIDS

Traditionally, responsibility for providing care in the home for people with serious illness has fallen to women as wives, mothers, or daughters of the afflicted individual. Among the many societal repercussions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been the creation of a new group of caregivers—gay men who are the primary caregivers for their partners with AIDS. In the 1980s and early 1990s, before the advent of protease inhibitors and the new antiretroviral treatments, AIDS was a pernicious, essentially uncontrollable terminal illness that manifested horrendous opportunistic infections. Caregiving during this period was challenging at every level: emotional, psychological, physical, and even spiritual. The tasks were daunting, highly stressful, and unremitting. The only predictable aspect of the disease was that it would claim its victim sooner rather than later. How could these caregivers, many of whom were themselves infected with HIV, maintain their own sanity, and for those who were HIV+, sustain their own physical health, while facing the extraordinary challenges of AIDS caregiving? These were the questions that led us to design a study about this new group of caregivers. We felt that there was a great deal these men could teach us about coping with profound psychological stress that would help other AIDS caregivers as well as anyone who was faced with the profound stress of caring for someone with a serious illness.
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Spring 2016 [E-Newsletter]

CAPS/UCSF PRC leading PrEP research!

Welcome to our new quarterly e-newsletter! This issue focuses on PrEP or pre-exposure prophylaxis. Read about our work on PrEP uptake and implementation in Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Texas, and internationally. There are also CAPS updates to share, so take a look! In this issue:
  1. The Trans Community and PrEP
  2. Local black MSM and PrEP Access
  3. Black MSM in TX and PrEP Use
  4. iPrex Open Label Extension
  5. International HIV/STI Programs for Transgender People
  6. CAPS Technical Assistance
  7. Mpowerment Summit 2016
  8. Updates