Presenting Author: Tamara Taggart, MPH, PhD, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, Yale University

ABSTRACT

Background: For Black emerging adult men, physical and social characteristics of neighborhoods potentiate high risk substance use and sexual risk-taking. Further, experiences of racial discrimination, often more pronounced in disadvantaged neighborhoods, are a chronic stressor leading to more externalizing behaviors (e.g., substance use and sexual risk-taking). While there is an established association between racial discrimination and health, the role of context (i.e., neighborhoods and social networks) remains unclear.

Objectives: He-MaNN is a cross-sectional mixed-methods study. Drawing on ecological models and models of stress and coping, this study uses an activity space approach to understand the influence of neighborhoods, social networks, and racial discrimination on substance use and sexual risk-taking among Black emerging adult men.

Methods: One hundred and fifty Black emerging adult men residing in New Haven, CT completed a survey and an activity space assessment. Thirty men were selected to also complete a qualitative interview about neighborhoods, racial discrimination, and health.

Results: Data collection is ongoing during the summer of 2017. We will have results, and will incorporate them into the poster before the time of the symposium.

Implications: Findings may contribute to structural and social interventions that seek to address racial discrimination as a fundamental cause of health disparities. Findings may also contribute to the design of location-based HIV and substance abuse prevention interventions tailored to the social ecological conditions of Black emerging adult men. Our findings may also underscore the importance of community-based interventions to address HIV disparities, such as increasing the availability of HIV testing services in at-risk locations.

Authors: Tamara Taggart, MPH, PhD; Trace Kershaw, PhD; and Norweeta Milburn, PhD.