Creating Partnerships for HIV Prevention Among YMSM: The Connect to Protect Project and House and Ball Community in Philadelphia

Abstract

Community participation in prevention research has emerged as an important resource for identifying and addressing HIV risk factors and populations that may be more susceptible to these risks. This article focuses on the coalition at the Philadelphia site of Connect to Protect®: Partnerships for Youth Prevention Interventions (C2P), and the partnerships developed to work with an understudied subgroup of young men who have sex with men (YMSM), the House and Ball Community (HBC). The authors describe the coalition's process of identifying HIV risk factors, developing objectives and prevention activities such as increased access to HIV counseling and testing, and building partnerships with the HBC community. Local HIV testing data from C2P affiliated events, additional outcomes, and future directions for the coalition to continue these efforts are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• ballroom
• coalitions
• community partnerships
• HIV prevention
• House and Ball Community
• young men who have sex with men

Additional information

Notes on contributors

The Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions

The Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions (ATN) and Connect to Protect® were supported by grants U01 HD040533 and U01 HD040474 from the National Institutes of Health through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development with supplemental funding from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse and Mental Health. An additional grant, U01 HD040481, supported this work at the ATN site at University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The authors thank the investigators and staff of the ATN listed in Harper, Willard, and Ellen's (2012 [this issue]) “Connect to Protect®: Utilizing Community Mobilization and Structural Change to Prevent HIV Infection Among Youth” for their valuable contributions to this project.