Comparing recruitment strategies to engage hard‐to‐reach men who have sex with men living with HIV with unsuppressed viral loads in four US cities: Results from HPTN 078

作者：Chris Beyrer, Jowanna Malone, Stefan Baral, Zhe Wang, Carlos del Rı́o, Kenneth H. Mayer, D. Scott Batey, Jason E. Farley, Theresa Gamble, Jill Stanton, James P. Hughes, Ethan Wilson, Risha Irvin, Oscar Guevara‐Perez, Adam P. Bocek, Josh Bruce, Ronald Gaston, Vanessa Cummings, Robert H. Remien, the HPTN 078 Study Team · 发表于：Journal of the International AIDS Society · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1002/jia2.25798 · 被引用次数：12 · 研究领域：HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions、HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk、HIV Research and Treatment

Abstract Introduction There is an urgent need to identify men who have sex with men (MSM) living with HIV with unsuppressed viral loads to prevent transmission. Though respondent‐driven sampling (RDS) is traditionally used for hard‐to‐reach populations, we compare how RDS and direct recruitment (DR) perform in identifying MSM living with HIV with unsuppressed viral loads and identifying MSM with socio‐demographics characteristic of hard‐to‐reach populations. Methods This is a cross‐sectional analysis among 1305 MSM who were recruited from March 2016 to December 2017 for a case management intervention trial (HPTN 078). We recruited participants across four cities using RDS and DR methods: Birmingham, AL; Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD; and Boston, MA. Participants completed a socio‐demographic questionnaire and underwent HIV testing. We compare the proportion of MSM with HIV and unsuppressed viral loads (HIV RNA 1000 copies/ml) based on recruitment method using Pearson chi‐square tests. We also compare differences in race, income, healthcare coverage, education, sexual orientation, hidden sexuality and comfort with participating in the LGBT community between recruitment methods and perform non‐parametric trend tests to see how demographics change across RDS recruitment waves. Results RDS recruited 721 men (55.2%) and DR yielded 584 men (44.8%). Overall, 69% were living with HIV, of whom 18% were not virally suppressed. HIV prevalence was higher among those recruited via DR (84%) c...