Engaging ‘gay’ businesses in HIV prevention ‘Everywhere’: findings from a qualitative study in eight European cities

Abstract

‘Gay’ businesses providing physical and virtual sex spaces for men who have sex with men (MSM) have been shown empirically to be useful sites for public health and health promotion interventions. While HIV incidence in Europe has been more or less stable in recent years, the number of infections attributed to MSM has continued to increase with new cases almost doubling in Western and Central Europe between 2000 and 2006. Set within the context of the Everywhere Project, the objective of this study was to explore the feasibility and acceptability to ‘gay’ businesses of developing and implementing a European model of HIV prevention focusing on MSM that provides common prevention standards across eight European countries.