Confronting Homophobia in Anal Health: Community – based Program Science and HPV among MSM in Nairobi, Kenya

This project aims to understand and confront homophobia and its role in the late presentation of HPV-related and other anal diseases among MSM in Nairobi. 

The new knowledge generated on health services and HPV will provide a firm foundation of evidence to inform a community-driven HPV and cancer prevention program for MSM in Nairobi. This is especially urgent in what has been termed a rising cancer epidemic in Africa.

Objective

  • Identify and examine the constellation of individual, social, and structural barriers that inhibit MSM
    from timely seeking anal health services.
  • Build community capacity to track changes in anal health issues over time and more effectively engage in evidence-based advocacy.

Project Initiated 2022


The study started in October 2022 and will continue for three years and builds on and contributes to an internationally renowned Kenyan-Canadian collaboration that has been studying STBBI and closely partnering with stigmatised communities since the 1980s.

Partnerships


PHDA is partnering with Health Options for Young Men on HIV/AIDS/STI (HOYMAS) and the University of Manitoba on this project, with funding support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).