Venton Jones, from the National Black Gay Men's Advocacy Coalition and Meico Whitlock, from National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) review findings of a survey of black gay men who have sex with men about their social media use. Suggestions are made to engage this audience for HIV prevention using social and mobile media. Presented at YTH Live 2013.

1. 1
What’s Going on Online
With Hard to Reach Populations?
Social Media Use Among Black Gay Men
@VentonJones, MS – National Black Gay Men’s
Advocacy Coalition (@NBGMAC)
@MeicoWhitlock, National Alliance of State and
Territorial AIDS Directors (@NASTAD)
Sixth Annual Conference on Youth + Tech + Health
April 7,8 & 9, 2013
San Francisco, CA

2. The National Black Gay Men’s
Advocacy Coalition (NBGMAC)
• Established in 2006 to bring together
Black gay men to address the
escalating impact of HIV among this
population.
• NBGMAC’s core purpose is improving
the health and well-being of Black gay
men with an emphasis on the
HIV/AIDS epidemic.
• NBGMAC achieves its mission through
engagement of federal and state policy
makers, public health officials, media
and community leaders.

3. Presentation Goals
• Share findings from NBGMAC Communications
Survey about how BGM/MSM are using social media;
• Increasing dialogue about how social media can be
effectively leveraged to reach, engage, and mobilize
BGM/MSM around important health issues such as
HIV/AIDS; and
• Share best practices/strategies for reaching
BGM/MSM.

4. Background
• More Americans than ever before have
access to Internet-enabled technologies
and are using them to connect to social
networking platforms.
•
• Appropriate use of new media
technologies could be powerful tools for
reaching, engaging and mobilizing Black
gay men.

5. New HIV Infections in the U.S., 2010
MSM • MSM majority of new infections
among youth 13-24
• Black MSM are 51% of new
infections among African
Americans
• More new HIV infections (4,800)
occurred among young black MSM
(aged 13-24) than any other age or
racial group of MSM. (CDC)
Gay and Bisexual men of all races account for the greatest number of HIV infections in the United States

6. Age-Specific HIV Prevalence
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Age
HIVPrevalence
Stall, AIDS Behav, 2007
Black
MSM
MSM overall
MSM overall IR 1.9%;AA MSM IR 4.0%
Projected Infections among MSM
by Age Cohort
(Stall,
2009)

7. Demographics of teen internet users
% of teens who use the internetTotal teens 93
Boys 91
Girls 94
Race/ethnicity
White, Non-hispanic 94
Black, Non-Hispanic 87
Hispanic 95
Age
12-13 88
14-17 95
Household income
Less than $30,000.yr 88
$30,000-$49,000 89
$50,000-$74,999 96
$75,000+ 97
% of teens
who use the
internet
The Pew Research Center’s
Internet & American Life
Project 2009 Parent-Teen
Cell Phone Survey conducted
from June 26 to September
24, 2009 n=800 teens ages
12-17 (including 245 cell
phone interviews)

8. 17%
of teens look online for health topics that
are hard to talk about, like drug use,
sexual health, or depression
-When young people don’t feel like they’re getting what they need from
an adult they typically turn to their devices.
“Mobile Access 2010” Pew
Internet and American Life

9. “Mobile Access 2010” Pew
Internet and American Life
46
African
Americans
51
Hispanics/
Latinos
33
Whites
% of people who use their phone to
go online

10. Your top health searches, asked and answered, October 2010
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/21/top.health.searches.answered/index.html
Of the top 5 health searches on mobile
Yahoo, 3 were sexual health related
• Pregnancy
• STDs
• Herpes

11. 17%
The number of mobile users who
land on How you get HIV or AIDS
(making it the most viewed page)
Mobile users are coming to us for what they see as our
most important content and are bypassing the home
page altogether, it seems. “Mobile Access 2010” Pew
Internet and American Life

12. NBGMAC’s Domestic Use of Social Media
Website
www.NBGMAC.org
Facebook
www.Facebook.com/
NBGMAC
Twitter
www.Twitter.com/
NBGMAC

13. NBGMAC BMSM Communications
Survey
• The purpose of this national survey is to gain a better
understanding of how to leverage the Internet and mobile
technology to reach and engage Black gay men and other men
who have sex with men around national health policy and
advocacy and health promotion.
• March 2013 – June 2013
• Exceeded original goal of 250 participants
• New goal of 500 participants

14. Total Surveyed (as of April 1st 2013 ) - Participants Under 35 115
Age
18 to 24 31 (27%)
25 to 34 84 (73%)
Education
Employed, working 40 or more hours per week 73 (63%)
Employed, working 1-39 hours per week 30 (26%)
Not employed, looking for work 10 (9%)
Not employed, NOT looking for work 1 (<1%)
Disabled, not able to work 1 (<1%)
Household income
Less than $30,000.yr 40 (35%)
$30,000-$49,000 38 (33%)
$50,000-$74,999 25 (22%)
$75,000+ 12 (10%)

15. Mobile Device Ownership
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

16. Mobile Device Internet Use
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

17. Primary Device for Internet Access
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

18. Top Five Mobile Activities
1. Take pictures
2. Use a social networking website
3. Send or receive text message
4. Send or receive e-mail
5. Listen to music
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

19. Black Gay Mens Internet Use
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

20. Websites Frequently Used By Black Gay Men
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

21. Where Do Black Gay Men Meet
Online?
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

22. Where do you access your primary source of information for
advocacy and policy updates for Black gay, Bi, SGL men?
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

23. What are your top three websites, blogs, or email listservs
you use to access advocacy and policy information related to
Black gay men?
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

24. What are your top three websites, blogs, or email listservs you use to access
advocacy and policy information related to Black gay men?
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

25. What are your top three policy and advocacy
concerns related to the Black gay community?
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

26. Have you read the National HIV/AIDS Strategy?
“2013 BGM/MSM
Communications Survey”
NBGMAC

27. How knowledgeable Are You With the
Affordable Care Act?

28. How familiar are you with Biomedical HIV Prevention
Research initiatives (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP),
Microbicides and Treatment as Prevention (TaP)?

29. Would you utilize Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (prescribing HIV
medications to HIV-Negative individuals prior to engaging in
sexual intercourse to reduce their risk of contracting HIV)?

30. What Does the Data Tell Us?
• Black gay men are heavy
utilizers of social media,
especially Facebook.
• Laptops and cell phones
were primarily used to
access the Internet
• Advocacy and Policy
information is primarily
accessed through social
networks
• Geo positioning
applications are a good
tool to meet other men, but
not to access advocacy
and policy.
• Facebook is KING!

31. What Do We Do With This Information?
• Evaluate whether and how social media could be leveraged
to effectively reach and engage Black gay men around
health and policy and advocacy issues
– Explore ways to leverage the social nature of new media
to facilitate peer-to-peer knowledge transfer via key
influencers in a community such as bloggers
• Explore how mobile technology (especially cell phones)
might be used to reach and engage Black gay men (e.g.
texting and photo sharing)

32. What Do We Do With This Information?
• Explore ways to integrate email into
outreach efforts for Black gay men
• Experiment with new approaches to
engagement and outreach
• Share lessons learned

33. Current and future efforts at mobilizing
young people of color around the
HIV/AIDS epidemic
• Engaging MSM & reaching non-gay identified
and “hard-to-reach MSM (especially in
southern states).
– INNOVATION IS KEY!
– Re-evaluate your community leaders
– Engage your stakeholders who can help do what you cannot
– Support new leadership

34. Contact NBGMAC
National Black Gay Men’s
Advocacy Coalition
3636 Georgia Ave NW
Washington, DC 20011
Phone – 202-455-8441
Website – www.NGMAC.org
Facebook – Facebook.com/NBGMAC
Twitter – Twitter.com/NBGMAC
THANK YOU!