HIV Treatments Optimism Among Gay Men: An International Perspective
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To examine HIV optimism (i.e., optimism in the light of highly active antiretroviral therapy [HAART]) among gay men in four industrialized countries using a standard scale. METHODS: Gay men were surveyed between January and December 2000 in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne, n = 3,120), Canada (Vancouver, n = 357), England (London, n = 690), and France (Paris, n = 1,715). Information was collected on HIV status, sexual behavior, and responses to a four-item HIV optimism scale. Possible responses to each item were as follows: strongly disagree, 1; disagree, 2; agree, 3; and strongly agree, 4. Agreement indicated optimism in the light of new HIV drug therapies. Total scores could range from a minimum of 4 (strongly disagree on all four items [i.e., not at all optimistic]) to a maximum of 16 (strongly agree on all four items [i.e., extremely optimistic]). RESULTS: In all cities, mean scores on the four-item scale were low (<7), indicating that for the most part men disagreed with the optimism statements. Mean scores were lowest in Paris (p <.001). There was no consistent relationship between mean optimism score and HIV status. In multivariate analysis, the association between mean optimism score and both city (p <.001) and HIV status (p =.05) was significant as was the interaction between city and HIV status (p =.02); the association between mean optimism score and age was not significant (p =.6). In London, Paris, and Sydney/Melbourne but not Vancouver, the mean optimism scores for men reporting high-risk sexual behavior were higher than scores for other men (p <.001). CONCLUSION: In the year 2000, only a few gay men in Australian, Canadian, and European cities were optimistic in the light of new HIV drug therapies. Although there was an association between HIV optimism and high-risk sexual behavior, causality could not be established. The lack of a consistent association between HIV optimism and HIV status across the cities suggests heterogeneity in gay men's response to HAART in different countries.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".