Pilot of Mpowerment for Young Men Who Have Sex With Men (YMSM) in Beirut

This project will adapt and pilot a multi-level, community-based intervention to promote HIV prevention and sexual health among young men who have sex with men in Beirut.

Mpowerment (MP) is an evidence-based community-level, structural, social and behavioral intervention for HIV prevention developed for YMSM that targets individual and community empowerment and mobilization, self-affirmation, sexual self-knowledge, and creation of a supportive social environment. MP has been widely used in the U.S., but not in a mostly Muslim setting. This project will adapt and pilot MP for the sociocultural issues facing YMSM (age 18-29) in Beirut. There will be a 2-year pilot implementation of MP, with longitudinal cohorts of YMSM in Beirut and Jounieh, the latter being the control community. Primary outcomes will be unprotected anal sex and HIV testing, with secondary outcomes being engagement in peer outreach, and perceived peer norms related to condom use and HIV testing.