Abstract
Identifying gay neighborhoods could help in targeting HIV prevention efforts for men who have sex with men. This study’s purpose was to identify gay neighborhoods using latent class analysis (LCA). Data at the ZIP code level were drawn from the American Community Survey, website lists of gay bars and neighborhoods, and the Florida Department of Health HIV surveillance system. A two-class model was selected based on fit. About 9% of the ZIP code data was in class two, which was designated as gay neighborhoods. Cohen’s kappa coefficient was used to examine agreement between the classification of ZIP codes from LCA and websites. Fair agreement was found (0.2501). Gay neighborhoods could serve as a place to disseminate information about pre-exposure prophylaxis and other methods for HIV prevention. Improved measures, such as the planned question about same-sex spouses for the 2020 US Census, are needed to identify gay neighborhoods in population-level surveys.
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01 September 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02417-1
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Acknowledgements
Financial support to conduct this study was received from the Dissertation Year Fellowship from the University Graduate School at Florida International University. Research reported in this publication was partially supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities under Award Numbers K01MD013770 and U54MD012393 at Florida International University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the Florida Department of Health.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by DM, KF, and MJT. The first draft of the manuscript was written by DM and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Mauck, D.E., Fennie, K.P., Ibañez, G.E. et al. Gay Neighborhoods: Can They Be Identified in a Systematic Way Using Latent Class Analysis?. Arch Sex Behav 51, 3395–3401 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02369-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02369-6