A Relational Framework for Engaging Latino Sexual Minority Men in Sexual and Behavioral Health Research

Peer ambassador stories: formative qualitative research to enhance the reach of PrEP, HIV testing, and behavioral health treatments to LMSM in South Florida

Existing HIV prevention interventions, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and behavioral health treatments inadequately reach Latino men who have sex with men (LMSM) in the US. This study involved formative research to inform the content, design, and implementation of a scalable, low resource implementation strategy - peer ambassador stories - stories from peers to normalize using PrEP, HIV testing, and behavioral health treatment. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 LMSM to elucidate their content, design, and implementation preferences for peer ambassador stories. Men were asked about story prompts, story contributor characteristics, story platform features, design preferences, and recommendations for enhancing the adoption and use of the peer ambassador technology platform among LMSM. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed via rapid qualitative analysis. Qualitative analyses identified 14 themes within 4 pre-specified domains. Collectively, the themes unified around the central concept that technology-delivered peer ambassador stories require a personalized, relational, culturally relevant touch to be acceptable and appropriate for LMSM. This study suggests that disseminating peer ambassador stories using electronic platforms and audio/video formats may enhance the reach of services and if they are personalized, relational, and culturally relevant. Findings have broad implications for informing other peer-based strategies to mitigate HIV disparities among LMSM.

Employment of trauma informed principles in the Palabras Fuertes project: Implications for narrative research with older Latinx communities

In the US, there is a growing number of older Latinx communities. Qualitative approaches such as narrative inquiry may be fruitful endeavors to elucidate their lived experiences. However, older Latinx communities, including sexual minorities, are disproportionately exposed to social, health, and historical challenges that may result in exposure to potentially traumatic events (e.g. discrimination, illness, grief, etc.). The recognition of high rates of exposure to potentially traumatic events among participants has led to the recommended adoption of Trauma Informed (TI) principles for use in non-trauma specific research. At present, there are limited examples and discussions about the implementation of TI principles in qualitative research and our literature review yielded no discussion of the use of TI principles in narrative inquiry or with older Latinx communities. In this manuscript, we advocate for the adoption of TI principles when engaging in narrative inquiry with older Latinx adults. Second, we discuss examples of TI guided practices we employed while conducting the Palabras Fuertes study of life history narratives with older Latino immigrant gay men living in New York City. Finally, based on these experiences, we provide recommendations for incorporating TI into future narrative research with older Latinx communities.