Jody Jollimore, "HIM: an evidence-based community response"
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This document discusses the mission and evidence-based approach of the Health Initiative for Men (HIM) organization. HIM's mission is to promote gay men's health through community engagement, online resources, and events. It focuses on building relationships between gay men and health professionals. HIM grounds its programming in research evidence from surveys of gay men, health summits, literature reviews, and evaluation of past campaigns. Examples provided show how research informed campaigns on condom use and HIV/STI testing.
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Jody Jollimore, "HIM: an evidence-based community response"
- 1. Health Initiative for Men - An evidence-based community response Gay Men’s Health Summit 2011 Jody Jollimore, MPP
- 2. OUR MISSION The Mission of HIM is to strengthen gay men’s health and well-being through trusted, tailored, targeted research-based health promotion services and by engaging the community through volunteer involvement, online access and events…
- 3. OUR MISSION • …we foster mutually beneficial relationships among gay men and health professionals to ensure the best possible outcomes…
- 4. OUR MISSION… …We do this because • we value the ability of gay men to make informed decisions • we value the role of our community in supporting the foundations for healthy living, and • we value scientific research.
- 5. Rooted in evidence - Sex Now Survey research accompanied our business plan, submitted to VCH in 2007 - HIV transmissible behaviour on the rise - Testing decreasing (11 – 18% not testing) - Online hook ups increasing (17 – 58%) Other sources - Epidemiological data (BC CDC, PHAC) -Anecdotal evidence from past Summits
- 6. Putting Knowledge into Action • 2005, 2006, 2007 Gay Men’s Health Summit sponsored by CBRC in Vancouver • demonstrates interest in gay men’s health by: – Community – Researchers – Health planners – Service-delivery organizations
- 7. Impact on Programming - Approach to and types of groups offered - Social marketing campaigns (Do the Math, WRUW4, Hottest, What’s Your Number?) - PEP position paper - Mental/emotional health services - Study participation
- 8. Sources • Sex Now Surveys • Summits & Conferences • Lit Reviews & Knowledge Exchange • Campaign Evaluations • Local & National Research Studies (ManCount, Acute HIV Study, Momentum Health Study) • Our clinic questionnaire • Volunteer Engagement • Community Consultation
- 9. Evidence to Action Condom distribution program, followed by a ‘condom’ campaign
- 10. The ‘Condom Campaign’ – Do the Math - Initial message – ‘Peace of Mind’ - Based on ManCount data, final message – ‘Not all sex has the same risk’
- 11. Do the Math Evaluation - Conducted by the Community Based Research Centre - 900+ men survey at gay venues and online - 47.7% recalled the campaign - 82.2%* thought about their own HIV risk as a result of the campaign, 57.6%* learned new risk reduction strategies - 53.7%* understood the message - 85.4%* felt it important - Those who had seen the campaign were found to be more knowledgeable about HIV risk reduction
- 12. Testing Campaigns From WRUW4 to Hottest at the Start
- 13. THANK YOU! For a preview of HIM’s new testing resource, go to www.checkhimout.ca/testing What’s Your Number?
Editor's Notes
- I want to start off by talking about our Mission briefly. I know many of you will already be familiar with our Mission – but I think to fully understand how important being evidence-based is to the Health Initiative – well, it starts right in our mission. Trusted, tailored, targeted research-based health promotion services
- In this definition of Health care professionals we include researchers. We want gay men to benefit from research about them – the same way we want them to have healthy relationships with their doctors and healthcare providers – we want to have a good relationship with those who will study us.
- -informed choices – when gay men fully understand their options and the risk or lack their of associated with them – then I have done my job. I can’t be there to ensure guy’s are using condoms – but I can make sure they understand the benefits and risks of certain choices.Here we see role of communtiy, but again – a second mention of science in our Mission – we value scientific research – why? Because without it, we have no basis for our programming. A lot of this is common sense – if you go to a funder with some ideas, backed solidly by evidence, research and public opinion, you’re going to have a much stronger case – and this rings true for speaking directly to gay men – and we’ll see a bit more of this when I talk about Do the Math in a bit.
- For the Health Initiative – evidence means more than just something we say to make ourselves sound au-courant and official – at HIM this really means something and it always has. From our beginnings – long before the Mission was fully articulated - evidence and scientific research was used to convince funders that HIM was a good idea to begin with. The founders of HIM used a well-known local source for their planning – the Sex Now Survey has been an invaluable tool for generating local and now National data on gay men and other men who have sex with men. Other sources include Epi data from the BC CDC (which continued to show a disproportionately higher rate for gay men. Then there was evidence submitted based on Summit discussions and presentations – where it had been established that there was a real need and desire for a stand alone gay organization – a reminder that the work we’re doing at the Summit, bears a real impact in the real world as well.
- A typical discussion about any type of programming at HIM will often include sentences like …..but where is the evidence for this….or ….what does the research say. You see, we could wrote a few shocking stats down on paper, sent it to our funders and never addressed evidence again – but instead – HIM actively pursues an evidence-based agenda. It is how we guide our work.Groups – community generated, must demonstrate ‘need or desire’ – groups come from a need and must meet our mandate – literature says gay men are isolated, in particular, new comers – out of this comes a group called Connect with HIM.Social Marketing – each campaign has, included in the creative brief, a background document called research or data – we include this and ask our design people to review the data to better understand the population.PEP – was born from anecdotal evidence (streetnurse approached us with some shocking stories), quickly supported by international research (supporting the provision of a PEP program, disputed old arguments 84% never return for a second course)Mental/emotional health services – Sex Now showed us there was a real need for mental health services – lots of guys accessed them, but even more wanted access and they told us that it would bring them to a community org.Study participation – HIM prioritises participation in research studies as a valuable use of our time – part of my job is to work with the Acute HIV Study and the Momentum Health Study in their upcoming respondent driven research – and before that ManCount and before that, Sex Now which is an on-going source of information.
- Gay men’s health summit, CATIE knowledge exchange conference last week,
- When I arrived in Vancouver – gay bars did not give out free condoms – the Pumpjack had a basket – and other than that, there were none. This was weird to me, having come out in Montreal, I never bought a condom – I just filled my pockets at Unity night club on Sunday and I was good for the week. But Vancouver did not have one. So we took a look around – and soon enough we found some local evidence that cited ‘lack of access’ as one of the reasons gay guys weren’t using condoms. So we embarked on a dual pronged approach to promoting condom use – first we created the condom dispensers with community advisors and Dragon’s Den, then we got Davie St on board by signing MOUs with all of the bars giving us access to the dispensers, followed up by a drive for donations, a call for volunteers, etc, etc, I could go on. I really love this program. Anyway – that was the first prong, let’s deal with the access issue. The second prong was to be a ‘condom campaign’.
- ManCount showed us that gay men were already using a number of HIV harm reduction methods – which explains partially why infection rates are not rising as quickly as transmissible behavoiur. What we found was that gay men knew all about condoms – but they also knew they weren’t ALWAYS necessary – the problem is that they weren’t sure when. Do the Math attempted (and according to the evaluation, succeeded) in having a frank conversation with gay guys about traditionally taboo topics like serosorting, strategic positioning, withdrawal, testing before giving up condoms, lower risk activities. Suddenly – Use a condom – Peace of Mind – turned into “Not all sex has the same risk.” – a far more nuanced campaign – but it was also honest and it met gay men where they were at. Some of the criticisms of this campaign was that it was too complex, too much information – condom every time has to be the message. I pointed to the data and said “it’s simply not the case – we know gay men are already using harm reduction methods, it’s our obligation to give them as much information about these as possible”.I would like to say, that Do the Math remains a condom campaign. Almost every page tells you that condoms are the best way to picking up or passing on HIV. It’s just that we didn’t stop there.
- WRUW4 – was the result of a partnership between HIM and the Acute HIV study at the BC CDC. As part of their study – they introduced NAAT testing or what we like to call the Early test at select locations in Vancouver. At the same time, Rapid testing was being introduced. Our research told us that gay men knew very little of Rapid tests and Early (NAAT) test – so a campaign was created to promote two new types of tests in Vancouver – a diffusion of innovation approach was used to promote the two new tests – the message was simple ‘what are you waiting for” playing on both the Rapid and Early tests – WRUW4 – was later evaluated, again by our colleagues at the CBRC – they found that while the Rapid test had proven to be popular – little was known about the Early test – essentially it told that we did a great job of promoting the Rapid test – but the Early test not so much.With this in mind – we continued working with the team at the Acute HIV study to fine tune our message. The next campaign would focus only on the Early test – and it’s benefits – picking up Acute HIV where other tests may not. Again, using a number of sources, we put together a data package attached to our Creative Brief – it included stats on Risk, Condom Use, Current testing patterns, reasons for getting tested, age variables, etc. It was decided that young men who engage in high risk sex would be the refined target of this next campaign. The Hottest campaign had a simple message “if you fuck without condoms and aern’t completely sure of your partner’s status – get tested” – it suggested that Acute HIV was a powerhouse in the sack – and like a new relationship – it is Hottest at the Start.Hottest is an example of knowledge translation – the rather complex notion of Acute HIV – translated to gay men – using evidence acquired from previous campaigns and studys.While an official evaluation has not yet been done – anecdotally I do interviews for the Acute HIV Study – and one of the questions asks about knowledge of Acute HIV and the Early test – and many of the guys interviewed recall the campaign – and remark that is it new information they did not know.