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

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Latino MSM
• PrEP
• HIV testing
• peers
• implementation strategy

Acknowledgements

Study conceptualization (AH, SAS), Formal Analysis (JJ, NP, NR, PA), Funding Acquisition (AH, SAS), Methodology (AH), Project Administration (NP, JJ), Writing – Original Draft (JJ, NR, PA), Writing – Review & Editing (NR, PA, NP, KT, SAS, RS, AH).

Disclosure statement

Dr. Safren receives royalties from Oxford University Press, Guilford Publications, and Springer/Humana press for books on cognitive behavioral therapy. Other authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was completed with support from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities [grant number K23MD015690] (Harkness) and the National Institute of Mental Health [grant number P30MH116867] (Safren), and a predoctoral fellowship awarded to Jahn Jaramillo [grant number T32MH126772]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.