Division of Scholarship and Research, Columbia University School of Nursing, 516 W. 168th Street, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, 225 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA.
BMC Public Health. 2021 Oct 29;21(1):1959. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-12015-w.
The number of youth living with HIV in the United States (US) continues to rise, and racial, ethnic, and sexual minority youth including young men who have sex with men (YMSM) and young transgender women (YTGW) bear a disproportionate burden of the HIV epidemic. Due to social and healthcare system factors, many YMSM and YTGW do not seek HIV testing services and are therefore less likely to be aware that they are infected. Mobile health technology (mHealth) has the ability to increase uptake of HIV testing among these populations. Thus, the mLab App-which combines HIV prevention information with a mobile phone imaging feature for interpreting at-home HIV test results-was developed to improve testing rates and linkage to care among Black, Latino, and other YMSM and YTGW living in New York City and Chicago and their surrounding areas.
This study is a three-arm randomized controlled trial among YMSM and YTGW aged 18-29 years. Participants are randomized to either the mLab App intervention including HIV home test kits and standard of preventive care, standard of preventive care only, or HIV home test kits and standard of preventive care only.
mHealth technology used for HIV prevention is capable of delivering interventions in real-time, which creates an opportunity to remotely reach users across the country to strengthen their HIV care continuum engagement and treatment outcomes. Specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic, mHealth technology combined with at-home testing may prove to be essential in increasing HIV testing rates, especially among populations at high-risk or without regular access to HIV testing.
This trial was registered with Clinicaltrials.gov ( NCT03803683 ) on January 14, 2019.
美国（US）的青年 HIV 感染者人数持续上升，包括男男性行为者（MSM）和跨性别女性青年（TGW）在内的少数族裔、种族和性少数群体青年承受着不成比例的 HIV 流行负担。由于社会和医疗保健系统因素，许多 MSM 和 TGW 并未寻求 HIV 检测服务，因此他们不太可能意识到自己已被感染。移动健康技术（mHealth）有能力增加这些人群接受 HIV 检测的机会。因此，mLab App 应运而生，它将 HIV 预防信息与用于解释家庭 HIV 检测结果的手机成像功能相结合，旨在提高纽约市和芝加哥及其周边地区的黑人和拉丁裔以及其他 MSM 和 TGW 的检测率和与护理的联系。
这是一项针对年龄在 18-29 岁的 MSM 和 TGW 的三臂随机对照试验。参与者被随机分配到 mLab App 干预组（包括 HIV 家庭检测试剂盒和标准预防保健）、标准预防保健组或 HIV 家庭检测试剂盒和标准预防保健组。
用于 HIV 预防的移动健康技术能够实时提供干预措施，这为在全国范围内远程接触用户提供了机会，以加强他们的 HIV 护理连续体参与和治疗结果。特别是在 COVID-19 大流行期间，将 mHealth 技术与家庭检测相结合可能被证明是增加 HIV 检测率的关键，尤其是在高风险人群或无法定期接受 HIV 检测的人群中。
该试验于 2019 年 1 月 14 日在 ClinicalTrials.gov 上注册（NCT03803683）。
