Abstract
The Internet is an emerging research tool that may be useful for contacting and working with rural men who have sex with men (MSM). Little is known about HIV risks for rural men and Internet methodological issues are only beginning to be examined. Internet versus conventionally recruited samples have shown both similarities and differences in their demographic characteristics. In this study, rural MSM from three sizes of town were recruited by two methods: conventional (e.g. face-to-face/snowball) or Internet. After stratifying for size of city, demographic characteristics of the two groups were similar. Both groups had ready access to the Internet. Patterns of sexual risk were similar across the city sizes but varied by recruitment approach, with the Internet group presenting a somewhat higher HIV sexual risk profile. Overall, these findings suggest the Internet provides a useful and low cost approach to recruiting and assessing HIV sexual risks for rural White MSM. Further research is needed on methods for recruiting rural minority MSM.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 311-319 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | AIDS and Behavior |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2004 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was supported by NIMH Grant RO1–MH63667. The views presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent those of the funding agency. The authors would like to thank the staff of the WRAPP project for their help in recruiting, data management, and editing.
Keywords
- HIV
- MSM
- rural Internet sampling
