How social media is helping gay Chinese men fight HIV
International study highlights role crowdsourced campaigns can play in helping men overcome their reluctance to get proper testing
Gay men in China are more likely to take HIV tests if they are shown images and videos from crowdsourced social media campaigns, a group of international researchers has concluded.
HIV infection rates are increasing among sexually active gay men in China, yet testing rates remain relatively low because of a lack of awareness and a fear of coming forward due to the social stigma that still surrounds homosexuality in much of the country, the study found.
But the survey of 1,200 sexually active gay men in eight Chinese cities concluded that they were significantly more likely to do so once they had been exposed to health awareness campaigns that had been developed with the help of local gay communities.
Conducted by public health researchers in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the study was published in the medical journal PLOS Medicine on Wednesday.
The study, by UNC Project-China, a public health collaboration between the University of North Carolina and a number of universities and hospitals in the mainland and Hong Kong, recruited participants via Blued, a gay social networking app.
They were divided into four groups and every two weeks between August 2016 and August last year were sent images from previous crowdsourced social media campaigns.