EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS) conducted a community-based needs assessment to investigate the HIV prevention needs of East and Southeast Asian international students that identify as gay, bisexual, and/or men who have sex with men (ISgbMSM). The project’s activities include hiring and training ISgbMSM Peer Outreach workers, developing relevant community-based research knowledge and skills amongst the team, developing and executing individual semi-structured interviews and cross-sectional survey to explore ISgbMSM’s unique experiences of migration and settlement, various vulnerabilities for HIV and other STBBIs, overall experiences when accessing healthcare and other HIV/STI prevention resources. 11 East and Southeast Asian ISgbMSM participated in the semi-structured interviews and 100 participated in the survey, with most from Vietnam, China, South Korea, and Japan. The average age of all participants was 25.1 years old, with 98% identifying as cisgender men and 2% identifying as trans men. The average duration of residency in Canada amongst participants was 3.6 years, ranging from four months to eight years. Most ISgbMSM participants (70.7%) reported having insurance through their school, only 5.4% reported having no insurance at all. Just over half of survey participants (53.3%) reported having a primary healthcare provider here in Canada. However, even though half (50%) of ISgbMSM participants felt like they would be comfortable speaking to a healthcare provider about sexual health, only 20% actually reported having spoken to their doctor about it, with a large majority (92.4%) reported preferring accessing sexual health information online. Although a large majority of participants reported they were tested for HIV (85.9%), only about half (57%) of these participants reported having done so within the last six months. Amongst survey participants, we saw high self-reports of knowledge with respect to HIV risk factors (84.8%) and protection methods (83.7%). Participants also self-reported high confidence in suggesting the use of protection (76.1%) and reported feeling like they were at low risk for HIV (64.7%). However, fewer participants reported always knowing their sexual partners’ HIV status (22.8%) or reported remembering to use condoms when under the influence of recreational drugs or alcohol (20.7%).
ACAS2019/2020 ANNUAL REPORT
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