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Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Center for AIDS Intervention Research say the old ways of promoting HIV prevention among African American men have shown “limited effectiveness” – and they will use a new $6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop new ones.

(illustration by Adrian Palomo)

The research will be led by Jeffrey Kelly, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine and CAIR’s director.

Currently, efforts focus on HIV testing and counseling, but, according to MCW, “Those approaches have been shown to have limited effectiveness as members of that particular population have not sought counseling, historically.”

Last year, African American men were about 14 times more likely than white men to be diagnosed with HIV, according to the state Department of Health Services. The population of black “men who have sex with men” (so-called because not all identify themselves as gay) in Milwaukee has been particularly hard-hit by the disease, even prompting an investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control last year.

The researchers plan to explore a “social network-level intervention approach” and compare its effectives to the traditional routine of testing and counseling.

Kelly tells NewsBuzz African American MSMs tend to draw partners from a smaller social network than non-minority MSMs.

Some organizations, such as the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, are already encouraging people who come in for HIV testing to also encourage their friends, partners or other members of their social networks to get tested, too.

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