Faculty Articles

Cruising in Cyber Space: Comparing Internet Chat Room versus Community Venues for Recruiting Hispanic men Who Have Sex with Men to Participate in Prevention Studies

Publication Title

Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse

ISSN

1533-2640

Publication Date

1-1-2007

Abstract

Difficulties with recruitment of hidden populations, such as Hispanic men who have sex with men (MSM), have hampered HIV prevention research, leading researchers to explore alternative recruitment modalities such as the Internet. In this paper, we compare the efficiency and cost of recruiting HMSM from Internet chat rooms versus community venues and examine the differences between participants recruited from each type of venue. Internet recruitment was more efficient and somewhat less costly than community recruitment. Although the two groups were comparable in most demographic factors and HIV risk behaviors, Internet recruits were more likely to be bisexual, more likely to be HIV seropositive, had a higher level of education, and reported higher levels of psychological distress and lower levels of gay community attachment. Implications of our findings for using Internet chatrooms as recruitment venues are discussed.

DOI

10.1300/J233v06n02_09

Volume

6

Issue

2

First Page

143

Last Page

162

Disciplines

Medical Specialties | Medicine and Health Sciences | Osteopathic Medicine and Osteopathy

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Peer Reviewed

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