Formative Evaluation of an HIV Prevention App tailored for Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men: Acceptability and Usability Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: HIV incidence is increasing among Latino gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Mobile phone apps represent an innovative tool to promote pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use, HIV testing, and condom use. Objective: This study aimed to assess the acceptability and usability of Saludfindr, an Android-based HIV prevention app tailored to the needs of Latino MSM in the Atlanta area. Methods: We recruited adult Latino MSM to interact with the app for 4 months. Saludfindr included initial and periodic health assessments; provision of suggestions regarding PrEP, HIV testing, and condom use; in-app product ordering; customized motivational messages; a customized sexual health clinic list; and a "Contact Us" button. To assess acceptability, we measured use of each app feature, PrEP and HIV testing uptake, and participant ratings of the app's usefulness. We assessed usability using the System Usability Scale. Results: We enrolled 31 participants; the median age was 27 (IQR 24.5-32) years, 97% (30/31) were cisgender men, 81% (25/31) identified as MSM, and 61% (19/31) used the app in Spanish. All participants completed the initial health screening, with 84% (26/31) and 77% (24/31) completing the 2- and 4-month health screenings, respectively. Of all participants, 52% (16/31) and 23% (7/31) ordered condoms and home HIV tests through the app at least once, respectively. During the study period, 71% (22/31) of the participants got tested for HIV, of whom 68% (15/22) accessed it through clinic-based HIV testing. Of the participants not on PrEP at baseline, 41% (7/17) initiated PrEP during the study, and all of them did so at one of the clinics listed on the app. Saludfindr reached a System Usability Scale score of 74.5/100 (excellent). Conclusions: Saludfindr was highly acceptable and usable among Latino MSM participants in the Atlanta area. In-app assistance to access PrEP and clinic-based HIV testing referrals was well received. Further efforts are needed to increase users' self-efficacy with home HIV self-testing.
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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 | 0.014 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 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".