blued pilot app in china

Conditions: Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis

Summary: the proposed research includes a longitudinal pilot study to assess the feasibility and acceptability of blued+. this combination hiv prevention intervention will integrate a combination package of hiv prevention services into blued, a gay dating app, for men who have sex with men (msm) in china. despite high hiv incidence among msm, hiv prevention interventions such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep) use remains low in china. if the hiv prevention intervention services provided through the blued+ app prove feasible and acceptable, the pilot test will facilitate the design of a larger study of intervention efficacy. the study population will be self-reported hiv-negative blued users who are 18 years of age or greater, were assigned a male sex at birth, report having anal sex with a man in the last 6 months, eligible for prep according to china's consensus statement, and reside in metropolitan beijing or chengdu, china.

the pilot study will be an interrupted time series cohort of 400 msm. in two cities, a three-month baseline standard of care (soc) period with measurement at 0 and 3 months will be followed by a 12-month intervention period with the measurement at 6, 9, 12, and 15 months. during the intervention, enrolled study participants will take surveys every 3 months, as well as have free access to the enhanced version of the blued app, blued+, which additionally provides hiv prevention intervention services such as hiv health messages, prep drugs, at-home hiv self-testing kits, condoms, and lubricants for no costs. participants interested in prep will be required to have additional prep initiation physical exam clinical visits, follow-up clinical visits, and dry blood spot collection lab visits for blood prep level measurements. the total study period is 15 months (3 months control run-in period and 12 months intervention). online surveys are provided over the study period, 2 for the enrollment and basement, and 4 follow-ups for every 3 months of the intervention; physical exam visits are required for participants who chose to initiate and refill prep; 1 dry blood spot collection visit is provided for participants who chose to measure blood prep level. the participants will be recruited online through the blued app.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * registered blued app user * ≥18 years of age * male sex at birth * self-report anal sex with a man in the last 6 months * hiv-negative or unknown hiv status * behaviorally eligible for prep per published china guidance * able to complete study instruments in mandarin chinese * resident of the metropolitan area of beijing or chengdu, china * eligible for prep based on china's consensus statement * additional inclusion criteria apply for prep exclusion criteria: * not a registered blued app user * \<18 years of age * not male sex at birth * does not report anal sex with a man in the last 6 months * has previously tested positive for hiv * not eligible for prep per published china guidance * unable to complete study instruments in mandarin chinese * not a resident of the metropolitan area of beijing or chengdu, china * currently enrolled in another hiv prevention study * evidence of fraudulent participation, such as a duplicate ip address, multiple screening attempts, duplicate emails, etc. * additional inclusion criteria apply for prep

Keywords: hiv prevention hiv testing condom use msm dating mobile application