Marseille 2007
Marseille 2007
Abstract book
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Abstract #537  -  Are Gay Communities Dying or Just in Transition? The Impact of Gay Community Change on HIV Prevention
Session:
  53.1: Are Gay Communities Dying or Just in Transition? The Impact of Gay Community Change on HIV Prevention (Workshop) on Sunday @ 14.00-16.00 in 5 Chaired by Simon Rosser
Authors:
  Presenting Author:   Prof B. R. Simon Rosser - Unversity of Minnesota School of Public Health, United States
 
  Additional Authors:   
Aim:
Gay community leaders, researchers, and HIV preventionists working with men who have sex with men are invited to a dialog workshop seeking to identify how gay communities, nationally and internationally, may be evolving, transforming and/or assimilating into mainstream cultures. By participating in this peer discussion, attendees can expect to gain insights regarding observations of how gay communities in different parts of the world may be changing, hear first person reports on the impact of this change on HIV risk, and identify common issues for future HIV prevention. The issue of community transformation is an important area of research in itself as well as critical to HIV prevention planning targeting men who have sex with men. Since the aims for this workshop lie in a 17-city study currently in progress across the USA, the workshop will begin with a brief overview and background to structural intervention research, theories of community change, and summary of key questions under study. To aid reflection, participants will then be asked to write down using a short anonymous questionnaire what changes they are observing in their specific communities. A facilitated discussion, using a semi-structured format, will then ask participants to identify changes specific to external factors (e.g., societal homonegativity, laws related to homosexuality), physical environments (e.g, gay bars, clubs, gyms and bathhouses and their popularity and clientele), virtual environments (e.g, gay Internet sites), gay zones (e.g., gentrification of the Castro, the Village), recreational drug acceptability and availability (e.g., crystal meth, alcohol use), organizational viability (e.g., AIDS Service Organizations, GLBT organizations) and generational differences being observed in same-sex cohorts (e.g., gay identification). Next, participants will be ask to identify how changes on these dimensions may be influencing individual mens sexual lives relationships, HIV decision making, risk behavior, and syndemic challenges such as alcohol-related HIV risk. A general discussion on what gay communities of the future will likely look like concludes the session. This workshop will be led by Simon Rosser, PhD, principal investigator of an NIH-funded, naturalistic study in 17 cities the USA researching how gay environments are changing. Findings from this workshop will be audiotaped for research purposes.
 
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