Sexuality Research and Social Policy最新文献

Introduction: In an effort to promote social distancing as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many jurisdictions altered policies surrounding alcohol delivery, newly allowing both on-premises (i.e., from restaurants) and off-premises (i.e., from liquor stores) to deliver alcohol directly to consumers in many places. However, it is unknown how these changing delivery policies impact alcohol use among youth and young adults (YYA), especially sexual and gender minority youth and young adults (SGMY) population.

Methods: Using alcohol use data from a national, cross-sectional study of youth and young adults with ages 14-24 (n = 736) between February 2021 and March 2022 and policy data from the Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), we used multinomial logistic regression to test associations between current drinking and binge drinking and the presence of different alcohol delivery policies, as well as to measure disparities between different subpopulations.

Results: Results indicate that off-premises delivery policy was associated with binge drinking as well as current light alcohol use. However, on-premises delivery policy was associated with lower rates of binge drinking. Younger populations and transgender populations reported lower levels of alcohol use.

Conclusions: Findings indicate that, as many of these policy changes become permanent, novel prevention strategies may be needed to prevent harmful alcohol use, especially in states that allow off-premises alcohol delivery.

Policy implications: Results of the present study support the development of future research scrutinizing the long-term effects of increased alcohol accessibility among YYA and increased binge drinking among YYA as a tertiary consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: Drug use behaviors are closely associated with increased risk for HIV and other STIs among men who have sex with men (MSM) globally. Less is known about the drug use characteristics and their association with HIV/STI risk among MSM in Mexico, who have 13 times higher risk of acquiring HIV than the general population. We characterized distinct classes of drug use behaviors among a nationwide sample of MSM in Mexico and tested their associations with HIV risk behaviors.

Methods: We used latent class analysis (LCA) to analyze injection/non-injection drug use data collected by the online Encuesta de Sexo Entre Hombres self-administered survey among 15,875 MSM living in Mexico between May-June 2017. MSM were recruited on general social media sites (e.g. Facebook and Twitter), popular LGBT + focused web pages (e.g. Soy Homosensual and Desastre), and dating apps (e.g. Grindr and Hornet). We used robust Poisson regression to examine associations between drug use classes and recent sexual risk behaviors while adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics.

Results: Most participants were under 30 years of age (65.5%), received a Bachelor's degree or higher (65.2%), gay-identified (82.5%), HIV negative (58.1%), and lived in the Mexico City/State of Mexico region (34.5%). We identified five distinct drug use classes: Limited Drug Use (75.4%), Marijuana Only (15.1%), Sex Event Popper + Marijuana (4.3%), Club Drug + Marijuana (4.2%), and Elevated Polydrug Use (1.0%). Compared to the Limited Drug Use class, participants in all other drug use classes were significantly more likely to engage in condomless anal intercourse (aPR = 1.14-1.39; p < 0.001), sex exchange (aPR = 1.37-4.99; p < 0.001), anonymous sex (aPR = 1.22-2.01; p < 0.001), group sex (aPR = 1.50-3.28; p < 0.001), and report an STI diagnosis in the past 12 months (aPR = 1.24-2.20; p < 0.002). Estimates were largest among the Elevated Polydrug Use class.

Conclusions: This study is the first to characterize drug use behaviors and HIV/STI risk among a national sample of MSM in Mexico. Understanding how distinct combinations of drug use behaviors impact sexual risk and prevention behaviors among MSM can inform how best to target and tailor future interventions to reduce HIV/STI incidence.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13178-023-00861-9.