Comparing Web-Based Venues to Recruit Gay, Bisexual, and Other Cisgender Men Who Have Sex With Men to a Large HIV Prevention Service in Brazil: Evaluation Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Internet and mobile phones, widely available in Brazil, could be used to disseminate information about HIV prevention and to recruit gay, bisexual, and other cisgender men who have sex with men (MSM) to HIV prevention services. Data evaluating the characteristics of MSM recruited through different web-based strategies and estimating their cost and yield in the country are not available. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to describe a web-based recruitment cascade, compare the characteristics of MSM recruited to a large HIV prevention service in Rio de Janeiro according to web-based venues, and estimate the cost per participant for each strategy. METHODS: We promoted advertisements on geosocial networking (GSN) apps (Hornet and Grindr) and social media (Facebook and Instagram) from March 2018 to October 2019. The advertisements invited viewers to contact a peer educator to schedule a visit at the HIV prevention service. Performance of web-based recruitment cascade was based on how many MSM (1) were reached by the advertisement, (2) contacted the peer educator, and (3) attended the service. We used chi-square tests to compare MSM recruited through GSN apps and social media. The estimated advertisement cost to recruit a participant was calculated by dividing total advertisement costs by number of participants who attended the service or initiated preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP). RESULTS: Advertisement reached 1,477,344 individuals; 1270 MSM contacted the peer educator (86 contacts per 100,000 views)-564 (44.4%), 401 (31.6%) and 305 (24.0%)-through social media, Grindr, and Hornet. Among the 1270 individuals who contacted the peer educator, 36.3% (n=461) attended the service with similar proportion for each web-based strategy (social media: 203/564, 36.0%; Grindr: 152/401, 37.9%; and Hornet: 107/305, 35.1%). MSM recruited through GSN apps were older (mean age 30 years vs 26 years; P<.001), more frequently self-reported as White (111/247, 44.9% vs 62/191, 32.5%; P=.03), and had higher schooling level (postsecondary: 157/254, 61.8% vs 94/194, 48.5%; P=.007) than MSM recruited through social media. GSN apps recruited MSM with higher HIV risk as measured by PrEP eligibility (207/239, 86.6% vs 133/185, 71.9%; P<.001) compared with social media, but there was no difference in PrEP uptake between the two strategies (P=.22). The estimated advertisement costs per participant attending the HIV prevention service were US $28.36 for GSN apps and US $12.17 for social media. The estimated advertisement costs per participant engaging on PrEP were US $58.77 for GSN apps and US $27.75 for social media. CONCLUSIONS: Social media and GSN app advertisements were useful to disseminate information on HIV prevention strategies and to recruit MSM to a large HIV prevention service in Brazil. Compared to GSN apps, social media advertisements were less expensive and reached more vulnerable and younger MSM. Digital marketing campaigns should use different and complementary web-based venues to reach a plurality of MSM.
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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 | 0.010 | 0.018 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 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".