Grant: Operating Grant - PA: HIV/AIDS Bridge Funding - Health Services/Pop Hlth Stream

Smoking rates among HIV positive (HIV+) gay men in Vancouver range from 63-71%, well above the Canadian average of 20%. Smoking is a major modifiable determinant of health and has been associated with significant comorbidities (e.g., cardiovascular, pulmonary, renal diseases) and HIV disease progression. By focusing on gender-sensitive approaches to SC for HIV+ gay men there is great potential to mitigate co-morbidities and promote the health of these men and their families. Tailored SC interventions may offer additive health benefits to the gains achieved by combination antiretroviral therapy (ART), which dramatically changed health outcomes and life expectancy for persons living with HIV (PLWH). SC interventions may reduce healthcare costs that accompanying co-morbid illness among PLWH. This research proposal is to develop a tailored SC intervention for HIV+ gay men to address social environment factors and deleterious health outcomes associated with tobacco use. Building upon our team's previous participatory action research experiences, we propose to develop and pilot test a SC intervention CoMUniTI QuitS (Collaboration for the development of an HIV+ gay Men's Uniquely Tailored Intervention to Quit Smoking). This community collaboration will use peer research methodologies consistent with Meaningful Involvement of Persons living with HIV/AIDS (MIPA) and Greater Involvement of Persons living with HIV/AIDS (GIPA) principles to engage HIV+ gay men who smoke in all aspects of the project. The proposed study builds upon our teams previous research successes and is the next step in this research program, and the goal of this project is to develop and pilot test a tailored SC intervention for HIV+ gay men who smoke.