PrEP Eligibility for LGBTQ+ Youth

To be eligible, participants must live in the San Francisco Bay Area, California (the 9 counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco); Los Angeles County, California; Miami-Dade County, Florida; or Broward County, Florida. Participants must self-report having sex with men and identify as a cisgender male and be aged 15 to 17 years (in California only; minors in Broward or Miami-Dade County will not be eligible), identify as a cisgender male and be aged 18 to 27 years, or identify as a transgender female (or assigned male at birth and identify as a woman) and be aged 18 to 27 years (transgender females outside this age range will not be not eligible). In addition, participants, in keeping with guidelines for the provision of PrEP for sexual risk factors, must qualify for PrEP by self-reporting being diagnosed with an STI (including chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, genital warts, human papilloma virus infection, and trichomoniasis) in the past 6 months or self-reporting condomless anal intercourse in the past 90 days [39 ]. Having a current known HIV-positive sexual partner and an indication for PrEP based on injection drug use were not included as eligibility criteria because of their expected rarity in our young study population. Among individuals aged 21 to 30 years, 1.5% reported ever injecting a drug not under a physician’s orders and only 0.5% reported sharing needles in this way in their lifetime [40 ], and in a study of youths aged 12 to 24 years at high risk for HIV infection, only 7.7% reported ever having sex with a person living with HIV [41 (link)]. Only participants who attested to feeling comfortable reading and speaking in English were included, as, owing to development costs, creating a version of the website in Spanish was not feasible and other services associated with the intervention, including laboratory and pharmacy services, were in the English language only. Participants are not eligible if they have taken PrEP in the past 30 days; have ever been diagnosed with HIV infection, hepatitis B infection, chronic kidney, liver, or bone disease; or do not meet the eligibility criteria.