PrEP Awareness, Use, Intention to Use, and Information Source Among Geosocial Networking Application Users in Mexico in 2018–2019

Pre-exposure prophylaxis awareness, use, and intention to use in a regional sample of Latin American geosocial networking application users in 2018–2019

“…6 However, PrEP awareness in the region has certainly increased from 10.4% in 2012. 19 Pre-exposure prophylaxis awareness was significantly lower in respondents between 18 and 25 years old, similar to results from Mexico, 15 Brazil, 5,7 and the United States. 20 While several studies have sought to address PrEP utilization among young MSM (YMSM), including YMSM within the ImPrEP countries, 21,22 more data are needed from the countries represented in this study.…”

“…Awareness of PrEP among this sample of GSN app users was 72.1%, but it was significantly higher among respondents from countries with partial or full PrEP policy adoption (79.1%). This frequency is similar to awareness among respondents from Mexico (81.3%) in 2018-2019, 15 a country with partial PrEP policy adoption, but higher than the pooled awareness of respondents from Brazil, Mexico, and Peru (64.9%) in 2018 5 or Brazil (61.3%) in 2014-2015. 7 These differences likely reflect timing of data collection, 12 geographic variation, 5,12 and varied national guidelines on PrEP.…”

“…Current PrEP use remains low; among PrEP-aware respondents, 5.6% were currently taking it, which is lower than 19.8% in Brazil in 2020, 24 but comparable to 3.5% in Mexico 15 in 2018-2019, 2.3% in Brazil in 2018, 5 and 2.0% in Peru in 2018. 5 While the small number of respondents currently taking PrEP limited our ability to study associations, PrEP eligibility was significantly associated with current PrEP use in this sample, which is encouraging.…”

“…In addition to age, living in a city with a population of at least 500,000 conferred significantly higher odds of having heard about PrEP, which was similarly demonstrated in respondents from Mexican cities with a population of at least 1.5 million. 15 This is likely due to greater engagement with gay communities and lower levels of homophobia and PrEP-associated stigma, 23 suggesting that efforts to increase PrEP uptake across Latin America should consider additional ways to disseminate information to less populated areas.…”

“…We analyzed results from Mexico separately, as the large sample size of Mexican respondents permitted countryspecific data analysis and interpretation. 15…”