The network structure of sex partner meeting places reported by HIV-infected MSM: Opportunities for HIV targeted control

Abstract

Baltimore, Maryland ranks among U.S. cities with the highest incidence of HIV infection among men who have sex with men (MSM). HIV screening at sex partner meeting places or venues frequented by MSM with new diagnoses and/or high HIV viral load may reduce transmission by identifying and linking infected individuals to care. We investigated venue-based clustering of newly diagnosed MSM to identify high HIV transmission venues. HIV surveillance data from MSM diagnosed between October 2012-June 2014 and reporting ≥1 sex partner meeting place were examined. Venue viral load was defined according to the geometric mean viral load of the cluster of cases that reported the venue and classified as high (>50,000 copies/mL), moderate (1500-50,000 copies/mL), and low (<1500 copies/mL). 143 MSM provided information on ≥1 sex partner meeting place, accounting for 132 unique venues. Twenty-six venues were reported by > 1 MSM; of these, a tightly connected cluster of six moderate viral load sex partner meeting places emerged, representing 66% of reports. Small, dense networks of moderate to high viral load venues may be important for targeted HIV control among MSM.

Overlapping Transmission Networks of Early Syphilis and/or Newly HIV Diagnosed Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM): Opportunities for Optimizing Public Health Interventions

“…The approach utilizing venue co-affiliation analyses inherently recognizes that sex partner meeting places form a network of venues, i.e. individuals attend more than one venue, which may yield important information for the optimization of public health control strategies [22][23][24][25]27].…”

“…In addition, it is notable that the majority of nominated sex partner meeting places (53.1%) were online venues. Our prior work showed increasing trends in nominations of online sex partner meeting places, but also suggested that physical places remained important and highly connected to online spaces [ 22 , 34 ]. Our current work suggests that sex partner meeting venues are dynamic and for MSM, may be increasingly online.…”

“…In our recent work, we have taken an innovative approach to analyzing the sex partner meeting places of newly HIV diagnosed MSM [ 22 ], an approach utilized by a few other researchers as well [ 23 – 25 ]. We have been approaching the study of venues like the study of networks by mapping the network connections of venues through venue affiliation and venue co-affiliation networks.…”

There’s an App for That: Using Geosocial Networking Apps to Access Young Black Gay, Bisexual, and other MSM at Risk for HIV

“…GSN app eligibility criteria: We selected the GSN app most frequently nominated as a sex partner meeting place by newly HIV diagnosed MSM. A description of these data has been provided previously in detail 20,21 ; briefly, we used local city health department public health surveillance data from October 2012 through December 2014 of MSM newly diagnosed with HIV living in Baltimore City. Cases were considered to be MSM if during the partner services interview they self-identified as gay/bisexual or reported having sex with men.…”

Contextualizing condoms: a cross-sectional study mapping intersections of locations of sexual contact, partner type, and substance use as contexts for sexual risk behavior among MSM in Peru

“…A figure was designed using Cytoscape (Cytoscape Consortium, New York, NY) in order to provide a visual structure to the complex interactions between substance use, CAI, and the location where sex occurred, which cannot be clearly described by text or depicted in tables. Examining network connections among locations in this way yields a rarely considered additional level of information, identifying locations with high frequency of CAI and other risk behaviors that are highly connected [31].…”