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Perceived Social Norms About Oral PrEP Use: Differences Between African–American, Latino and White Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men in Texas

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Abstract

Correct and consistent condom use has been the primary method of HIV prevention until the FDA approve the use of PrEP in 2012. While strong evidence existing regarding the efficacy of PrEP, uptake has remained slower than anticipated. While work is underway to better understand the factors impacting uptake, the majority of this work as been focused on white gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) living in metropolitan regions of the coastal U.S. The current study used a community-based framework to assess perceived social norms through a elicitation survey. A total of 104 GBMSM met inclusion criteria for the study. Several analytic categories emerged across questions and a number of differences were found across race and ethnicity such as who would approve or disapprove off PrEP and who would be likely to use PrEP. Further, we found differences between injunctive and descriptive norms. These findings suggest that there are unique factors contributing to PrEP uptake among racial and ethnic minority GBMSM and that to fully understand uptake a more robust measure of perceived norms may be needed.

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Funding

The study was funded by The University of Texas at San Antonio, College of Education and Human Development Faculty Research Grant Award. Conflict of Interest: None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to report. 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 and received approval for the University of Texas at San Antonio Institutional Review Board. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition, College of Education and Human Development, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX, 78212, USA

    Phillip W. Schnarrs, Ryan Martin-Valenzuela & Adolph J. Delgado

  2. The South Texas Consortium for HIV and STI Research, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Phillip W. Schnarrs & Ryan Martin-Valenzuela

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences, The University of Texas School of Public Health, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Danielle Gordon

  4. Department of Sociology, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Thankam Sunil

  5. Institute for Health Disparities Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Thankam Sunil

  6. San Antonio AIDS Foundation, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Adolph J. Delgado

  7. Department of Epidemiology, The University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    David Glidden

  8. Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training, New York, NY, USA

    Jeffrey T. Parsons

  9. Department of Psychology, Hunter College, New York, NY, USA

    Jeffrey T. Parsons

  10. Austin PrEP Access Project, Austin, TX, USA

    Joe McAdams

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  1. Phillip W. Schnarrs
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Correspondence to Phillip W. Schnarrs.

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Schnarrs, P.W., Gordon, D., Martin-Valenzuela, R. et al. Perceived Social Norms About Oral PrEP Use: Differences Between African–American, Latino and White Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men in Texas. AIDS Behav 22, 3588–3602 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-018-2076-7

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