A survey study to determine health disparities among men who have sex with men in Eastern Ontario: looking beyond sexual risk and the gay, urban core
Bibliographic record
Abstract
To create health promotion programs and clinical guidelines inclusive of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM), a better understanding of the health and social determinants that influence health outcomes for these men is required. Health research on gbMSM, however, has focused primarily on sexual health and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) with most information coming from men living in large urban centers. To address this limitation and better characterize the overall health of this population, we conducted a survey of gbMSM living in Eastern Ontario, Canada. The survey, completed anonymously, was available from June to October 2015. A total of 674 gbMSM completed the survey; 61% were urban, 23% suburban and 16% lived in small towns or rural settings. The average age was 44.2 years, ranging from 18 to 83 years. Healthcare engagement was high for all groups of gbMSM, though disclosure of sexual orientation to healthcare providers varied based on the gender of sexual partners. Urban men tended to be younger, sexually active only with men, open about their sexual orientation, and more likely to use recreational drugs while men living in small towns and rural settings tended to be older, bisexual and more likely to conceal their sexual orientation. While the physical health of respondents was on par with national averages for men, we found younger men were more likely to suffer from anxiety and use recreational drugs while older men were more likely to develop problem alcohol use. Depressive symptoms were high across all demographic groups. Our data demonstrate that while gbMSM in Eastern Ontario have a high degree of contact with the healthcare system, considerable health inequities remain unaddressed. We also find significant health differences among gbMSM depending on age, area of residence, and degree of disclosure of sexual orientation.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 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".