Gregorio Millet Talks "Gay, Sexy and Healthy"

by Andrew Davis for the Windy City Times

On Wed., Oct. 10, the HIV Prevention Conference ( presented by AIDS Foundation of Chicago’s Service Providers Council ) will kick off with “Gay, Sexy, and Healthy: Strengthening Prevention for Men Like Us” at University Center, 525 S. State. One of the speakers will be the CDC’s Gregorio Millett, MPH, who talked with Windy City Times about prevention, apathy and the ‘80s.

Windy City Times: What will you be discussing at this forum?

Gregorio Millett: Since my research deals with Latino and Black gay men, I’ll be talking about what’s taking place in the epidemic with each one of these communities, what type of implications they have for intervention research and ways to incorporate intervention research so that these communities feel less stigmatized. Some specific things that I want to discuss [ are ] that the risk factors for HIV differ between Black and Latino MSM [ men who have sex with men ] . For Latinos, the risk factors are somewhat the same as conventional risk factors: substance use, sexual risk, etc. With Black men, those traditional risk factors are not explaining why the rates of HIV are so high, and it’s something that has vexed researchers for the last 25 years. One of the basic theories is that the sexual networks are different, not only in Black MSM communities, but in the Black community, period—such that people in the Black community are coming into contact with people who have higher rates of HIV or STI [ sexually transmitted infections ] than people in other communities. There’s this implication that, since rates are so high in one community, people must be doing something wrong or must be engaging in greater rates of risk—and that’s not necessarily the case.

I also want to discuss two issues that are somewhat tangential to that last point. If we focus on individual risk behavior, we might miss other potentially important issues that impinge on the lives of these men. We need to look at interpersonal and structural factors, such as discrimination ( whether it be homophobia or racism ) and other issues, to see how they may or may not be influencing sexual risk in these communities.

Click here for the rest and how to register for the free lecture.