Reaching men who have sex with men in Ghana though social media: a pilot intervention
نویسندگان
چکیده
The prevalence of HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Ghana is more than 15 times greater than the prevalence of HIV among adult males in the general population. The prevalence of HIV among MSM in Accra and Kumasi is 34.4% and 13.6%, respectively. In 2012, the USAID Ghana SHARPER project — which supports HIV prevention and care among MSM — reached less than half of the 30,000 estimated MSM at the project sites. In 2013, SHARPER tested the use of social media by MSM community liaison officers to identify unreached MSM networks. We reached 15,440 unique MSM through social media, and 12,804 MSM through traditional outreach activities involving peer educators. The combined total of 28,244 MSM represented 92% of the estimated number of MSM in the country. There was little overlap among the MSM reached by the two methods. The use of social media is a very important avenue for reaching MSM who are not reached by peer educators in Ghana. The method should be adopted as an integral outreach approach for HIVprevention interventions in the future.
منابع مشابه
Predictors of Condom Use among Peer Social Networks of Men Who Have Sex with Men in Ghana, West Africa
Ghanaian men who have sex with men (MSM) have high rates of HIV infection. A first step in designing culturally relevant prevention interventions for MSM in Ghana is to understand the influence that peer social networks have on their attitudes and behaviors. We aimed to examine whether, in a sample of Ghanaian MSM, mean scores on psychosocial variables theorized to influence HIV/STI risk differ...
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