Recruiting substance-using men who have sex with men into HIV prevention research: current status and future directions.
Research investigators have identified increasing challenges to the recruitment of men who have sex with men (MSM) for observational and intervention HIV/AIDS studies. To address these issues, program staff from the National Institute on Drug Abuse convened a meeting on April 28th to 29th, 2009 to discuss issues in MSM recruitment. The panel indicated that there was decreased community identification with HIV research, although altruistic, community-oriented motives continued to be important. Substance use adds to recruitment challenges, particularly recruitment of MSM who use stigmatized substances. Relatively new recruitment methods such as respondent driven sampling, venue-data-time sampling, and internet sampling have helped advance knowledge about the recruitment process; however, they have not mitigated the challenges to MSM recruitment. Recruitment of youth and members of racial/ethnic minority populations present additional considerations. This report summarizes the meeting's proceedings, key points of discussion, and areas for further research consideration.
Prevention Research Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, MD 20892-9589, USA. jenkinsri@mail.nih.gov
Richard A
RA
Jenkins
D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000639:trends; D018451:Homosexuality, Male; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018579:Patient Selection; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications*