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Disclosure

Disclosure of HIV+ status is a complex, difficult and very personal matter. Disclosing one’s HIV+ status entails communication about a potentially life threatening, stigmatized and transmissible illness. Choices people make about this are not only personal but vary across different age groups, in different situations and contexts, and with different partners, and may change with time, depending on one’s experiences. Disclosure may have lifelong implications since more people are living longer, and often asymptomatically, with HIV. Public health messages have traditionally urged disclosure to all sexual and drug using partners. In reality, some HIV+ persons may choose not to disclose due to fears of rejection or harm, feelings of shame, desires to maintain secrecy, feelings that with safer sex there is no need for disclosure, fatalism, perceived community norms against disclosure, and beliefs that individuals are responsible for protecting themselves. This Fact Sheet primarily focuses on disclosure in the context of sex. Discussing and disclosing HIV status is a two-way street. Be it right or wrong, most people feel that when a person knows that he/she is HIV+ then he/she has an obligation to tell the other person, and counselors are encouraged to help people with this process. Also, laws in some areas require disclosure of HIV+ status prior to sex. However, both partners should be responsible for knowing their own status, disclosing their own status when it seems important, and asking their partner about their status if they want to know. Most HIV+ persons disclose their status to some, but not all, of their partners, friends and family. Disclosure generally becomes easier the longer someone has been living with HIV, as he/she becomes more comfortable with an HIV+ status. Disclosure to sex partners is more likely in longer-term, romantic relationships than in casual relationships (one-night stands, anonymous partners, group scenes, etc.). Disclosure also varies depending on perceived HIV status of partners, level of HIV risk of sex activities, sense of responsibility to protect partners (personal vs. shared responsibility) and alcohol or drug use.

Research Project

A Pilot RCT of Expressive Writing with HIV-Positive Methamphetamine Users

It is well established that HIV-positive persons who use stimulants such as methamphetamine are at increased risk for transmitting medication-resistant strains HIV. Mental health co-morbidities such as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and HIV-specific traumatic stress may substantially contribute to increased stimulant use among HIV-positive persons. Consequently, adjuvant mental health interventions designed to address traumatic stress could ultimately improve substance abuse treatment outcomes and reduce transmission risk behavior among HIV-positive methamphetamine-using men. In particular, expressive writing is a self-administered, exposure-based intervention to address trauma that could be easily disseminated to substance abuse treatment programs without placing significant additional burden on staff for training or intervention delivery. Over the past 20 years, numerous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have examined the efficacy of self-administered expressive writing interventions where participants are asked write about traumatic events for 15-30 minutesover 1-5 days. Findings from meta-analyses observed that expressive writing interventions improve psychological adjustment, physiological functioning, and self-reported physical health in various populations. However, to our knowledge no published research has examined the efficacy of expressive writing with active drug users. The proposed formative clinical research will examine the safety, feasibility, and potential clinical utility of delivering a self-administered, expressive writing intervention to HIV-positive methamphetamine-using men. In order to evaluate expressive writing, we will conduct a pilot RCT with 90 HIV-positive methamphetamine-using men. In addition to providing data on safety and feasibility, this RCT will provide an opportunity to examine the potential clinical utility of expressive writing with respect to measures of psychological adjustment (primary outcome) as well as substance use and HIV transmission risk behavior (secondary outcomes). Establishing that expressive writing is safe, feasible, and potentially efficacious with this population represents a crucial first step to inform a planned clinical research program. Subsequent clinical research will examine whether expressive writing can serve as an efficacious adjuvant to substance abuse treatment with HIV-positive methamphetamine-using men. Improving the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment for HIV-positive methamphetamine-using men would alleviate human suffering and could ultimately reduce HIV transmission rates.
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Stigma

HIV-related stigma is a significant problem globally. HIV stigma inflicts hardship and suffering on people living with HIV and interferes with research, prevention, treatment, care and support efforts. HIV-related stigma refers to negative beliefs, feelings and attitudes towards people living with HIV, their families and people who work with them. HIV stigma often reinforces existing social inequalities based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality and culture. Stigma against many vulnerable populations who are disproportionately affected by HIV (such as the stigma of homosexuality, drug use, poverty, migration, transgender status, mental illness, sex work and racial, ethnic and tribal minority status) predates the epidemic and intersects with HIV stigma, which compounds the stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV (PLWH) who belong to such groups.1 HIV-related discrimination, also known as enacted HIV stigma, refers to the unfair and unjust treatment of someone based on their real or perceived HIV status. Discrimination also affects family members and friends, caregivers, healthcare and lab staff who care for PLWH. The drivers of HIV-related discrimination usually include misconceptions regarding casual transmission of HIV and pre-existing prejudices against certain populations, behaviors, sex, drug use, illness and death. Discrimination can be institutionalized through laws, policies and practices that unjustly affect PLWH and marginalized groups.

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Educación sexual

Los programas educativos sobre la sexualidad y el VIH tienen varias metas: disminuir los embarazos no planeados, reducir las enfermedades de transmisión sexual (ETS) incluyendo la del VIH y mejorar la salud sexual de los jóvenes. En 2005 en los EE.UU., el 63% de todos los alumnos del último año de preparatoria (high school) habían tenido relaciones sexuales, pero sólo el 21 % de las alumnas usaron pastillas anticonceptivas antes del último coito y sólo el 70 % de los varones usaron condón en el último coito. En el 2000, el 8.4 % de las chicas entre 15 y 19 años se embarazaron, produciendo una de las tasas más altas de embarazo adolescente en el mundo occidental industrializado. Casi la mitad de los nuevos casos de ETS en EE.UU. del año 2000 (9.1 millones) se presentaron en jóvenes entre los 15 y los 24 años de edad. Algunos de los numerosos factores que influyen en la conducta sexual y el uso de protección entre los adolescentes tienen poco que ver con las relaciones sexuales, por ejemplo: la crianza en una comunidad desfavorecida, la falta de apego a los padres o el fracaso escolar. Otros factores de naturaleza sexual como las creencias, los valores, las percepciones de normas de los pares, las actitudes y habilidades relacionadas con la conducta sexual y con el uso del condón o de anticonceptivos, son factores en los que los programas de enseñanza potencialmente pueden incidir para generar cambios de conducta. Estos programas no pueden por sí solos eliminar las conductas sexuales riesgosas, pero sí pueden ser una pieza eficaz dentro de una iniciativa integral.
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Hombres gays Latinos en los Estados Unidos

El panorama siempre cambiante de los antecedentes demográficos de los latinos radicados en EE.UU. nos plantea retos singulares para resolver las disparidades de salud de esta población, especialmente con respecto a sus necesidades de prevención del VIH. Los latinos son el grupo etno-racial minoritario más numeroso y con mayor velocidad de crecimiento en EE.UU., con un crecimiento del 43% entre el 2000 y el 2010. Los datos también indican que los latinos son una de las poblaciones con aumento más rápido de riesgo de transmisión del VIH.

  • Los hombres latinos que tienen sexo con hombres (HSH o MSM por sus siglas en inglés*) representan el 81% de las nuevas infecciones entre hombres latinos y el 19% de todos los HSH en general.
  • Los latinos componen el 16% de la población de EE.UU. pero representan el 17% de las personas vivas con VIH/SIDA y el 20% de nuevas infecciones cada año.
  • Los jóvenes (13-29 años de edad) son el 45% de las nuevas infecciones de VIH entre los latinos MSM.

Estos datos señalan la necesidad de identificar las necesidades de salud culturalmente específicas de los hombres latinos homosexuales con el fin de crear intervenciones eficaces que respondan a las disparidades actuales de salud y eviten otras futuras. La Estrategia Nacional de EE.UU. contra el VIH/SIDA subraya la necesidad de programas de VIH que reduzcan las inequidades entre poblaciones minoritarias etno-raciales y sexuales. Los hombres latinos gay tienen identidades multiculturales distintas que los ubican en ambas categorías priorizadas.