How Can We Improve Online HIV and STD Prevention for Men Who Have Sex with Men? Perspectives of Hook-Up Website Owners, Website Users, and HIV/STD Directors

Abstract

Internet-based interventions have potential to reduce HIV and STD transmission among men who meet male sexual partners online. From November 2009 to May 2010 we surveyed dating and hook-up website users (n=3,050), website owners (n=18), and health department HIV/STD directors (n=81) to identify structural and behavioral prevention interventions that could be implemented online and which a majority of website users were willing to use, owners were willing to implement, andHIV/STD directors perceived to beeffective. A majority of each of the three stakeholder groups agreed on the following: 1) automated HIV/STD testing reminders; 2) local STD test site directories; 3) links to sex-positive safe sex videos; 4) access to sexual health experts; 5) profile options to include safer sex preference; 6) chat rooms for specific sexual interests; 7) filtering partners by their profile information; and 8) anonymous e-card partner notification for STD exposure. Findings help build consensus about how to prioritize resources for implementing online HIV and STD prevention interventions and highlight differences between stakeholders to guide future discussion about how to advance prevention efforts.

A case–control study evaluating the role of internet meet-up sites and mobile telephone applications in influencing a syphilis outbreak: Multnomah County, Oregon, USA 2014

“…Eight strategies were supported by all groups, including automated HIV/STI testing reminders imbedded into online resources and inclusion of local STI testing facility directories on dating and hook-up websites. They stressed the importance of partnerships between public health agencies and website owners for implementation of successful internet-based interventions 26. While ideas for online interventions are numerous, acceptance of these interventions by the MSM community and uptake of intervention content remains incompletely understood.…”

Reaching Suburban Men Who Have Sex With Men for STD and HIV Services Through Online Social Networking Outreach

“…However, these studies did not address mobile applications such as Grindr that use Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology. 5 Importantly, technology-enabled approaches may hold particular promise for reaching suburban and rural MSM who lack physical MSM friendly venues where they live, reducing their exposure to traditional outreach strategies optimized for urban settings. 6 National HIV behavioral surveillance and prevention efforts focus on MSM in urban centers, the population and location where HIV is most heavily concentrated.…”

Text-Messaging, Online Peer Support Group, and Coaching Strategies to Optimize the HIV Prevention Continuum for Youth: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

“…Although technology-based assessments studies (e.g., web-surveys) [144,148] have demonstrated success with large samples in the thousands [149], mobile and social media technology interventions studies have tended to be smaller scale by comparison [64]. While several R01 scale RCTs are currently underway, most focus on a single technology-based strategy or a bundle of strategies in a single intervention arm, instead of a comparison of multiple strategies as proposed in this study [147,150,151].…”