We received an epidemiology update, with additional information from the disease investigator (DI) interviews. The DIs managed to interview about 50% of newly diagnosed cases to obtain additional information about risk factors relating to their infection and recent partners. I’m not sure if that’s a high/low/average rate, and we certainly don’t know if the responding population was different than the non-responders (e.g., were non-responders at higher risk than the responders?).

Minnesota saw 35 more cases of newly diagnosed YMSM in 2009 compared to 2008. That increase was driven largely by African American and white youth. About 20% report only having sex with one person in the last year or since their last negative (whichever is shorter?), and about 50% report having sex with 3-4 in that time period. Approximately 20% of young men had sex with BOTH men and women during that time period. 64% reported anonymous sex, 30% reported meeting partners online, ~60% report infrequent condom use, 13% report non-injection drug use (mostly marijuana, some meth), and 25% report alcohol use.

Additionally, MDH and Hennepin County put together a couple of small focus groups for HIV+ and college-aged guys. I’ll eventually post the results of the focus groups, but there were a couple of comments that stuck out to me:
“People are dying with HIV, not from it. Honestly I couldn’t care less if I keeled over and died tomorrow, I’ve had a fun run, people have nine lives… and I’m running out.”
“HIV meds or car payment — good campaign message.”
“When you’re 5 years old you start to experiment too, it’s just human sexuality. We’re here to procreate or to get off basically.”
“A lot of people don’t want to hear about [HIV] and right now a big trend is barebacking.”
“A lot of younger people are sluts.”
“I never had unprotected sex and just recently got really drunk and got date raped and am now poz.”

I don’t think any of this information is earth-shattering. However, it does provide a little data around the situation we’re in. We spent the remainder of the day listening to speeches and breakout panels. Ultimately, it was a good day for networking, but there weren’t many (any?) concrete next steps. Personally, I’m still trying to process the conversations that I had yesterday, and am waiting for clear direction and need to emerge. Any guidance or thoughts would be greatly appreciated…