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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Tooru Nemoto, PhD, Mariko Iwamoto, MA, Diem Tran, MPH, MS, Mary Hsueh, BA, Samantha Witt, BA, Ha Chu, BA, Yoon-jung Kim, MA, Yon-Hee Kim, and Phuong Ngo, BA. Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California, San Francisco, 50 Beale St., Suite 1300, San Francisco, CA 94105, 415-597-9391, tooru.nemoto@ucsf.edu

Issues: The Health Project for Asian Women (HPAW) provides HIV prevention and health promotion counseling to Asian female sex workers at massage parlors and their managers/owners. Asian masseuses are exposed a high-risk work environment (e.g., high volumes of sexual encounters, violence, and substance use) with minimal protection from managers/owners. Description: Twenty-three massage parlors were identified in Tenderloin and Mission districts in San Francisco. Due to our culturally appropriate and consistent outreach efforts, more than 70% of massage parlors are accessible to our Vietnamese and Korean health educators who provide escort services for masseuses' medical check-ups and health promotion counseling (Three 1 and ½ hour sessions) for masseuses and owners at their parlors. The counseling programs are evaluated at pre-, post-, and 6-month follow-up interviews using a structured questionnaire. The pre-test data of masseuses (N=75) indicate that they work 11 hours/day for 5.5 days/week and have 25 male customers/week, on average, and that 24% had used drugs and 74% used alcohol. Masseuses' levels of AIDS knowledge were significantly increased at the post-test. Lessons Learned: It took a long time to establish rapport with Asian masseuses and managers/owners. The original intervention design (e.g., randomization) did not work for this highly stigmatized and hard-to-reach population. Providing services specific to their needs (e.g., escort services for masseuses and information about law and regulations for owners/managers) facilitate their participation in the intervention study. Recommendations: Recruiting culturally sensitive health educators and providing skills training and support for them are keys to continue a community-based intervention study.

Learning Objectives:

• 1.To understand HIV-related sexual risk behaviors among Asian masseuses in relation to their work environment.
• 2.To understand culturally appropriate outreach efforts for a hard-to-reach and stigmatized population.
• 3.To understand and apply the individual and system level intervention for Asian masseuses.

Keywords: Asian Women, Sex Workers

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No