May 19 - National Asian Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

By Eric Brus

The 11th annual National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day was held on Tuesday, May 19. The theme was "Saving face can't make you safe. Talk about HIV for me, for you, for everyone." The lead agency for this Awareness Day is The Banyan Tree Project a national campaign to end the silence and shame surrounding HIV/AIDS in Asian and Pacific Islander communities. To help commemorate the day, we've compiled an annotated list of online resources focusing on HIV/AIDS among Asians and Pacific Islanders.

� National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. AIDS.gov web page with links to information and resources about HIV/AIDS in this community.

National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day was first observed in 2005. The Banyan Tree Project plans and implements this observance with support from the CDC. The 2015 theme is "Saving face can't make you safe. Talk about HIV for me, for you, for everyone."

� HIV/AIDS and Native Hawaiians/Other Pacific Islanders Web pages from the Office of Minority Health with detailed statistical information about HIV testing, HIV and AIDS cases, modes of HIV exposure, and death rates among Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans.

Finding include that Asian Americans have slightly lower AIDS rates than their white counterparts and they are less likely to die of HIV/AIDS. The total number of reported AIDS cases has generally declined over the past five years for the White population, however it has increased for Asian Americans. Asian American women are 20 percent more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than White women.

� Substance Use Among a National Sample of Asian/Pacific Islander Men Who Have Sex with Men in the U.S. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. The objectives of this study were to describe drug use among Asian/Pacific Islander (API) men who have sex with men (MSM) and to examine how nativity (and acculturation as a secondary correlate) predicted such use. A total of 445 self-identified API MSM from seven metropolitan cities participated in a national HIV serological testing and psychosocial and behavioral assessment study. Results indicate clubbing was significantly associated with higher levels of substance use. Additionally, participants who were U.S.-born were more likely to have reported marijuana use and those with higher levels of acculturation reported less marijuana use. Our bivariate findings suggest that foreign-born status and acculturation experience may provide a protective effect against marijuana use among API MSM. These associations largely did not hold in our multivariate models. Future research should more fully examine the role of acculturation and nativity in substance use behaviors.

� Stress and Coping with Racism and Their Role in Sexual Risk for HIV Among African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men. Archives of Sex Behavior. The deleterious effects of racism on a wide range of health outcomes, including HIV risk, are well documented among racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States. However, little is known about how men of color who have sex with men (MSM) cope with stress from racism and whether the coping strategies they employ buffer against the impact of racism on sexual risk for HIV transmission. We examined associations of stress and coping with racism with unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) in a sample of African American (N = 403), Asian/Pacific Islander (N = 393), and Latino (N = 400) MSM recruited in Los Angeles County, CA during 2008-2009. Almost two-thirds (65 %) of the sample reported being stressed as a consequence of racism experienced within the gay community.

Overall, 51% of the sample reported having UAI in the prior 6 months. After controlling for race/ethnicity, age, nativity, marital status, sexual orientation, education, HIV serostatus, and lifetime history of incarceration, the multivariate analysis found statistically significant main effects of stress from racism and avoidance coping on UAI; no statistically significant main effects of dismissal, education/confrontation, and social-support seeking were observed. None of the interactions of stress with the four coping measures were statistically significant. Although stress from racism within the gay community increased the likelihood of engaging in UAI among MSM of color, we found little evidence that coping responses to racism buffered stress from racism. Instead, avoidance coping appears to suggest an increase in UAI. Free full text also available.

� Risks for HIV and Other Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Asian Men Who Have Sex with Men in Vancouver, British Columbia: A Cross-Sectional Survey.
BMC Public Health Free full text also available. Individuals of Asian heritage represent the largest ethnic minority in Canada. Approximately 10% of the new HIV diagnoses in men in British Columbia occur among Asian-Canadians. However, the HIV risk patterns of Asian men who have sex with men (MSM) have not been extensively studied.

Participants aged > 19 years were enrolled in a venue-based HIV sero behavioural survey of MSM in Vancouver, Canada. We compared the demographic characteristics, risk behaviours, and prevalence of HIV and other sexual and blood-borne infections between Asian and non-Asian MSM using bivariate analysis and logistic regression confounder modelling.

Amongst 1132 participants, 110 (9.7%) self-identified as Asian. Asian participants were younger than non-Asian participants (median age 29 vs. 32 years; p
Asian MSM in our study reported similar rates of UAI as non-Asian MSM, but had a lower prevalence of HIV infection. Other factors, such as the use of drugs and alcohol, in relation to sex, may partly explain these differences. However this requires further investigation.

� Social Network Characteristics and HIV Risk Among African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes Free full text also available.

To examine how social networks influence HIV risk among US racial/ethnic minority men who have sex with men (MSM) and whether the associations of social network characteristics with risk vary by race/ethnicity.

A chain-referral sample of 403 African American, 393 Asian/Pacific Islander, and 400 Latino MSM recruited in Los Angeles County, California, completed a questionnaire, which asked about their egocentric social networks, safer sex peer norms, and male anal intercourse partners. HIV-nonconcordant partnerships were those reported by respondents as serodisconcordant or where self and/or partner serostatus was unknown.

Overall, 26% of the sample reported HIV-nonconcordant unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) with a nonprimary male partner in the previous 6 months. In a generalized estimating equation (GEE) logistic model that controlled for race/ethnicity, age, nativity, incarceration history, and HIV status, being in a more dense network was associated with less HIV-nonconcordant UAI [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 0.92, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.86 to 0.99, P = 0.0467]. In addition, the effect of safer sex peer norms on HIV-nonconcordant UAI was moderated by ego-alter closeness (P = 0.0021). Safer sex peer norms were protective among those reporting "medium" or "high" ego-alter closeness (AOR = 0.70, 95% CI: 0.52 to 0.95, P = 0.0213 and AOR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.35 to 0.66, P
The significant association of social network characteristics with UAI point to network-level factors as important loci for both ongoing research and HIV prevention interventions among US MSM of color.

Eric Brus is the Director of Health Information at AIDS Action Committee. This report is produced by the Health Library of the AIDS Action Committee in collaboration with the New England AIDS Education and Training Center Minority AIDS Initiative Project. The full version is available online.