Acceptability and Feasibility of Unsupervised HIV Self-Testing Among Networks of Men:Tanzania STEP (Self-Testing Education and Promotion) Project
Acceptability and Feasibility of Unsupervised HIV Self-Testing Among Networks of Men:Tanzania STEP (Self-Testing Education and Promotion) Project
The purpose of this study is to recruit and train men to promote HIV self-testing to their network members in their camps and examine the efficacy of a peer-led HIV self-testing intervention on the uptake of HIV testing among men.
The research is the first evaluation of an unsupervised HIV self-testing strategy in Tanzania focusing on networks of heterosexual men. The reasons for focusing on heterosexual men is because heterosexual contact is the primary mode of HIV transmission in Tanzania and data from our previous trial indicate that 97% of the male camp members are heterosexual. Moreover it will be the first intervention to engage male peer leaders to promote HIV self-testing in their social networks in Tanzania. We will build on previous work our research team has conducted to identify 'camps' or local venues where young men socialize with elected leaders and members pay membership dues. Our previous intervention has proven successful to recruit and train leaders from camps to serve as community health leaders in their respective camps, with the goal of changing social norms related to HIV and gender-based violence. A novel approach to the proposed research is that we will leverage the work we have conducted within camps with social networks of men to test the acceptability and feasibility of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing and confirmatory blood-based HIV testing within existing networks of men that we know we can access through stable social venues. We will recruit male camp leaders to train them about HIV self-testing and instruct them to return to their camps and engage their male peers by informing them about HIV self-testing for prior to our research team offering participants the opportunity to self-test.
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