Applying the concept of positive deviance to gay men’s group sex events

Funding body: CIHR Operating Grant

Background: This grant’s objectives are to delineate behavioural strategies Vancouver gay and bisexual men use to protect themselves and their sexual partners from HIV/STD infection when attending group sex events. One focus is on patterns of substance use during these events. Participants are men enrolled in the Momentum Health Study who reported attending group sex events.

Progress to date: We have secured Human Ethics approval to begin collecting qualitative data for this project and have done pre-testing in Victoria and Vancouver. We published one paper on quantitative analysis in the journal Culture, Health and Sexuality, and gave a workshop at the Vancouver Gay Men’s Health Summit. Also completed 20 qualitative interviews which will form the basis of Robert Birch’s Ph.D. dissertation.