Rates of battering victimization among urban MSM are substantially higher than among heterosexual men and possibly heterosexual women. Public health efforts directed toward addressing intimate partner battering among these men are needed.

BackgroundSexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention remains a public health priority. Simple, practical interventions to reduce STD incidence that can be easily and inexpensively administered in high-volume clinical settings are needed. We evaluated whether a brief video, which contained STD prevention messages targeted to all patients in the waiting room, reduced acquisition of new infections after that clinic visit.Methods and FindingsIn a controlled trial among patients attending three publicly funded STD clinics (one in each of three US cities) from December 2003 to August 2005, all patients (n = 38,635) were systematically assigned to either a theory-based 23-min video depicting couples overcoming barriers to safer sexual behaviors, or the standard waiting room environment. Condition assignment alternated every 4 wk and was determined by which condition (intervention or control) was in place in the clinic waiting room during the patient's first visit within the study period. An intent-to-treat analysis was used to compare STD incidence between intervention and control patients. The primary endpoint was time to diagnosis of incident laboratory-confirmed infections (gonorrhea, chlamydia, trichomoniasis, syphilis, and HIV), as identified through review of medical records and county STD surveillance registries. During 14.8 mo (average) of follow-up, 2,042 patients (5.3%) were diagnosed with incident STD (4.9%, intervention condition; 5.7%, control condition). In survival analysis, patients assigned to the intervention condition had significantly fewer STDs compared with the control condition (hazard ratio [HR], 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.84 to 0.99).ConclusionsShowing a brief video in STD clinic waiting rooms reduced new infections nearly 10% overall in three clinics. This simple, low-intensity intervention may be appropriate for adoption by clinics that serve similar patient populations.Trial registration: http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT00137670).

Data on patterns of tobacco use among gay and bisexual men are limited. Largescale epidemiologic studies of tobacco use among Americans rarely measure sexual orientation, while large-scale studies ofgay men infrequently measure tobacco use. Existing evidence suggests that gay men are more likely to smoke than the general adult male population,16 with prevalence rates of smoking clustering around 40%.If gay men smoke more than men in general, they may constitute a population for whom American tobacco control efforts have had limited benefit. Furthermore, smoking rates among gay men may increase as major tobacco companies begin marketing campaigns that target gay men.7-9 The lack of representative household-based data on smoking among gay men has compromised advocacy efforts for prevention and treatment programs aimed specifically at gay men. Finally, the ability to design effective prevention and treatment programs would be enhanced by a greater understanding of the psychosocial correlates of smoking among gay men.This report describes the prevalence and associations of smoking among 2 large-scale samples of gay men, using both householdbased and gay bar sampling strategies. Prevalence estimates of smoking among gay men are directly compared with those of generalpopulation samples of adult men, and the independent psychosocial associations of smoking among gay men are identified. The report ends with a discussion of the key research questions that must be answered if rates of smoking are to be lowered among American gay men. Methods SamplingTwo separate methods were used to sample gay men in Portland, Ore, and Tucson, Ariz, during the spring of 1992. Briefly, the first method used a randomized time period method to recruit male patrons of gay bars (n = 1897). The second method used a random sample of listed telephone numbers for households in Portland and Tucson to screen for resident gay/bisexual men (n = 696). Taken together, the use ofthe bar and list-frame telephone sampling methods yielded a sample of 2593 self-identified gay or bisexual men from both cities. (For further detail on the sampling design, see reference 10.)The authors are with the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and the AIDS Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco.

Tobacco control efforts targeting the LGB population are needed to reduce this group's high rate of cigarette smoking.

Participants (N = 222) completed measures of negative mood regulation (NMR) expectancies, negative life events, coping responses, dysphoria, and somatic symptoms. After 6 to 8 weeks, they completed the same questionnaires except that daily hassles in the previous month were assessed instead of negative life events. In cross-sectional analyses and with stable variance in coping and symptoms controlled, NMR expectancies were positively related to active coping and negatively related to avoidant coping and symptoms. Changes in NMR expectancies and dysphoria were correlated. Time 1 dysphoria was positively related to daily hassles at Time 2, which in turn was associated with changes in coping and dysphoria from Time 1 to Time 2. Implications for counseling and stress-management interventions are discussed.

Results support earlier reports that smoking rates are higher for MSM compared with men in the general population. Findings related to cessation underscore the need to target tobacco control efforts for MSM.

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This article examines associations among parenting, parent-child relationships, and children's exposure to sexual possibility situations. African American families (N = 310) with preadotescent children were interviewed regarding parenting, parent-child relations, and demographic history. Children were interviewed privately about their exposure to sexual possibility situations. Results revealed marginal effects of child gender as well as effects of parent education and parent employment on children's exposure to sexual possibility situations. An interaction effect indicated that parenting support may be a protective factor against exposure to sexual possibility situations, among children whose mothers were adolescents at the time of their 1st childbirth.Adolescent sexual risk taking (e.g., unprotected sexual intercourse) is of increasing concern as a result of the risk of HIV/AIDS. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC; 1994), growing numbers of adolescents (i.e., 13-19 years of age) are contracting AIDS from heterosexual contact. These rates are higher for older youth (i.e., 20-24 years of age), and, because of the incubation period of 8 to 10 years for HIV, the rates indicate that risky sexual contact probably occurred at an earlier age (CDC, 1994). Closer examination of HTV/AIDS rates indicates that females are at higher risk for AIDS through heterosexual contact than males and that African Americans are at greater risk than other racial groups. Female African Americans experience the greatest risk for HIV/AIDS