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  • Video-based HIV testing services among cisgender men who have sex with men as a component of an HIV behavioural surveillance study during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City: implementation, feasibility and lessons learned

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Research letter
Video-based HIV testing services among cisgender men who have sex with men as a component of an HIV behavioural surveillance study during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City: implementation, feasibility and lessons learned
  1. Alexis Rivera,
  2. Pablo Martinez,
  3. Sarah Braunstein
  1. Bureau of HIV, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, New York, USA
  1. Correspondence to Mrs Alexis Rivera, Bureau of HIV, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY 11101, USA; arivera6{at}health.nyc.gov

https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2021-055110

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    HIV self-testing (HIVST) provides an opportunity for overcoming barriers to in-person HIV testing, and it has been shown to be generally preferable among populations at increased risk for HIV1 and effective in increasing HIV testing uptake.2–4 Within research, HIVST has mostly been incorporated into studies that aim to increase HIV testing uptake and less frequently in studies that aim to verify HIV status. Barriers to using HIVST as a method to confirm HIV status include missing data due to reliance on self-report and challenges to verifying self-report.5 HIVST through videoconferencing (video-based HIVST) may overcome these barriers as it allows for the visual verification of testing and of the test result without relying on participant follow-up, and it can serve as a viable virtual strategy in HIV research.

    From November 2020 to January 2021, we implemented video-based HIVST as an alternative to in-person HIV testing, as a component of the CDC’s National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Study (NHBS) among cisgender men who have sex with men in New York City. NHBS methods are described elsewhere. …

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Henry John Christiaan de Vries

    • Contributors AR oversaw data collection, analysed data and produced the first draft of the manuscript. PM collected data and contributed to the manuscript. SB oversaw data collection and contributed to the manuscript.

    • Funding This study was funded by CDC grant 1U62PS005086.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.