Grant: Catalyst Grant: HIV/AIDS CBR Program - General Stream

Sexfluent is the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research's new bilingual online national youth resource that addresses HIV and STBBI prevention through a comprehensive approach that examines gender identity and sexuality, modern dating and relationships, sexual pleasure, mental health, substance use and harm reduction. Let's Get Sexfluent! is a collaboration between community-based organizations across Canada, academic researchers, peer researchers, youth leaders, and people living with HIV to examine: (1) Who is Sexfluent reaching?; (2) What are the impacts of Sexfluent on safer sex practices/intentions, sexual health testing and/or help-seeking behaviors among diverse groups of youth? (3) Are there differential impacts related to gender, sexuality, Indigeneity, newcomer status or race? (4) In what ways could the resource and outreach activities be enhanced to (even) better reach target audiences and amplify impacts? We will partner with our established youth advisory, peer researchers and community partners across Canada to gather date from: (a) 1000 youth users of the Sexfluent website through an online survey to learn more about who access the site, how they found it, their feedback, its potential impact on behaviors and recruit participants for in-depth focus group discussions and (b) 80 young people through 8 targeted focus groups with priority youth populations. Focus groups will use fun and interactive activities to orient youth to the website and its features and query around its relevance and potential for diverse groups. Peer researchers will be involved in all aspects of the study including refining data collection instruments, gathering data, analysis and KTE. Results will be used to enhance Sexfluent programming. They will be shared widely to improve online HIV and STBBI outreach across Canada and around the world.