ACCESS AIDS Care provides prevention education to African American men who have sex with men, 18 to 35 years of age, through d-up: Defend Yourself!, a community-level intervention adapted from the Popular Opinion Leader intervention (POL). POL is listed in the 2009 Compendium of Evidenced-Based HIV Prevention Interventions under the “promising-evidence” category. d-up trains “opinion leaders” in the target group to give prevention messages to others within their friendship group. An opinion leader is someone who is able to influence their peers.
Opinion leaders are selected by the d-up coordinators or are referred by other trained opinion leaders. They must complete a 4 session group that teaches them how to engage in conversations around changing social norms within their social network regarding things like condom use. The training gives participants an opportunity to discuss the challenges they face and the impact of HIV on the African American community. d-up also includes a component on syphilis education and testing as the number of syphilis cases among African American men who have sex with other men remains remarkably high. d-up staff schedule regular outreach activities throughout the region and offer mobile HIV and syphilis testing routinely.
To learn more about d-UP!, click here.
Thank you to our community partner, ODUOUT for sponsoring the Condom Nation Tour at Old Domion University. Read More
