Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

A growing body of evidence suggests that concern for others (i.e., altruism) influences decision making to reduce HIV transmission and avoid sexual risk. Thus, HIV prevention altruism ranges from preventing passing HIV to one's partners, to concern regarding the impact of HIV on one's community. Given that HIV prevention altruism might affect the behaviour of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM), we investigated how this factor could be predicted by community involvement, attitudes, and sexual behaviours among HIV-positive and HIV-negative GBM. We recruited 2440 sexually active GBM living in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver to take part on a multi-city cross-sectional study (the Engage Study). Participants completed a computer-assisted survey that included a measure of HIV prevention altruism (the Sexual Communal Altruism Scale). We found that higher scores on our measure of HIV prevention altruism were associated with lower sexual compulsivity, fewer male sexual partners (in the past six months), a lower likelihood of engaging in condomless sex (in the past six months), and fewer perceived barriers to condom use. However, HIV prevention altruism scores had no association with involvement in the LGBTQ community. These findings offer some insight into how HIV prevention altruism impacts HIV risk behaviours among GBM.