A Traves de Nuestros Ojos (Through our eyes): Promoting Social and Health Equity to Address HIV/AIDS among Latino Gay Men

NASTAD conducted a qualitative study to investigate responses of health departments (HDs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) to the HIV/AIDS crisis among LGM in the U.S. Semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted between July 2010 and October 2010 with state and local HD and CBO participants in twelve jurisdictions: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas. Jurisdictions were selected based on several criteria, including large and/or growing Latino populations, considerable number of new Latino AIDS cases and geographic representation across eight of ten U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regions. The inclusion of smaller towns and rural areas was prioritized in addition to major metropolitan cities to capture areas often overlooked in much of the HIV research focusing on LGM. The data from this study reflect the perspectives of three key stakeholder groups: state and local HDs, service providers and LGM, both HIV-positive and -negative. The findings point to the real, local and sustainable changes that can occur for the LGM community if the social, structural and environmental determinants that contribute to HIV risk are combated, with precision, at every level. Key forms of collaboration, targeted use of resources, cultural sensitive and competent programmatic content and the mobilization of cultural norms of collective self-help can be the right mix for increasing awareness, lowering infection rates, providing better care and creating the types of civic action and responsibility that the HIV/AIDS crisis among Latino gay men demands.