Does internalized racism matter in HIV risk? Correlates of biomedical HIV prevention interventions among Black men who have sex with men in the United States

ABSTRACT

Black men who have sex with men (MSM) account for 26% of all new HIV infections in the United States. Biomedical HIV interventions have proven to reduce HIV infections however the use of these interventions by Black MSM is inconsistent. Research suggests that internalized racism may contribute to inconsistent biomedical HIV interventions (condom use and PrEP use) among Black MSM. Using a national sample of 432 Black MSM, we examined the relationship between condom and PrEP use and internalized racism. The results suggest there is some evidence for an association between internalized racism and PrEP use. In addition, internalized racism was not associated with condom use for both insertive and receptive anal sex among Black MSM. These finding suggest the relationship between internalized racism and HIV prevention strategies is not facile and more attention is needed to understand the true impact of racism, both internal and societal, on HIV prevention strategies among Black MSM. These findings underscore the nature of racism in the daily lives of Black MSM and how it impacts HIV prevention strategies adopted by these men.

KEYWORDS:

• Black men who have sex with men
• condomless anal sex
• PrEP
• internalized racism
• HIV prevention

Acknowledgements

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the University of Denver, the University of Pittsburgh, or Emory University. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Boards at the University of Denver: IRB: 658669-2 and University of Pittsburgh: IRB: 16110238 and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. This work was partially supported by a Public Good Grant from the University of Denver and the Center for AIDS Research at Emory University (P30AI050409).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this manuscript was funded by the University of Denver Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (Public Good Grant).