Comprehensive approaches to HIV prevention for African American gay and bisexual young men

Traditional evidence-based group-level interventions for HIV prevention are frequently challenged by issues of recruitment, community impact, and participant engagement. Agencies and their constituencies may benefit from more comprehensive approaches to HIV prevention in which prospective participants have multiple access points to the agency and its prevention efforts. Comprehensive programs should position recruitment in the context of broader agency and staff involvement that goes beyond program enrollment, participation, and completion.

In a 36-month period, a community-based organization, developed a comprehensive prevention program for HIV prevention that includes recruitment, enhanced HIV testing/counseling/referral, condom accessibility/acceptability, group-level and community-level interventions, leadership development, community health workers, social marketing, and linkage to care components. Each of these program elements is evidence-based and locally branded, using community and cohort advisory groups. Though several theories have informed program development, the assessment of community readiness and implementation theory have been foundations for all of these efforts.

High levels of name recognition, participant satisfaction, and knowledge increases have followed the implementation of this HIV prevention program. Local and national funding supports have also increased significantly, providing growing potential to address high rates of HIV and other health disparities.