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Finding Sex Partners Through Social Media Among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Hanoi, Vietnam

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Abstract

Many men who have sex with men (MSM) in low and middle income countries search for male sexual partners via social media in part due to societal stigma and discrimination, yet little is known about the sexual risk profiles of MSM social media users. This cross-sectional study investigates the prevalence of social media use to find male sex partners in Hanoi, Vietnam and examines associations between social media use and sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics, including levels of internalized, perceived and enacted stigma, high-risk sexual behaviors, and HIV testing. 205 MSM were recruited from public venues where MSM congregate as well as through snowball sampling and completed an anonymous survey. MSM who found their male sexual partners using social media in the last year were more likely to have completed a university or higher degree (aOR 2.6; 95% CI 1.2–5.7), experience high levels of MSM-related perceived stigma (aOR 3.0; 95% CI 1.1–8.0), and have more than ten lifetime male sexual partners (aOR 3.2; 95% CI 1.3–7.6) compared to those who did not use social media. A niche for social media-based interventions integrating health and stigma-reduction strategies exists in HIV prevention programs for MSM.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Centers for Aids Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Grant number: UNC CFAR P30 AI50410).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1600 McElderry St., Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Aparna Krishnan

  2. Center for Research and Training on HIV/AIDS, Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Minh Nguyen, Le Minh Giang & Viet Duc Vu

  3. Department of Health Behavior, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Tran Viet Ha & Vivian F. Go

  4. Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Madhura Bhadra

  5. Department of Epidemiology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Sang Minh Nguyen

  6. RMIT Institution, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Quynh T. Nguyen

  7. Department of Epidemiology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    William C. Miller

Authors
  1. Aparna Krishnan
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  2. Minh Nguyen
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  3. Le Minh Giang
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  4. Tran Viet Ha
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  6. Sang Minh Nguyen
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  7. Viet Duc Vu
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  8. Quynh T. Nguyen
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  9. William C. Miller
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  10. Vivian F. Go
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aparna Krishnan.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Krishnan, A., Nguyen, M., Giang, L.M. et al. Finding Sex Partners Through Social Media Among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Hanoi, Vietnam. J Community Health 43, 146–156 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-017-0397-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-017-0397-5

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