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Background. In Latin American countries and Suriname, sexual transmission is one of the most common modes of HIV transmission, and men who have sex with men (MSM) who engage in sex work constitute a key population. Methods. In a sample of MSM (N = 53,166) from the Latin American Internet Survey (2018) across 18 countries, we examined how sex work engagement is associated with syndemic conditions (multidrug use, homophobic abuse, depression/anxiety, alcohol dependency (CAGE alcohol questionnaire) and internalised homonegativity) and condomless anal intercourse with non-steady male partners using separate logistic regressions. We then used a structural equation model to determine if and how syndemic conditions mediate the relationship between sex work engagement and non-steady male partners. Results. We found that getting paid for sex was associated with less condom use for anal intercourse with non-steady male partners and particular syndemic conditions, such as multidrug use, homophobic abuse and alcohol dependency. In our structural equation model, the results showed that the direct relationship between sex work engagement and non-steady male partners was positive and significant, and syndemic conditions partially mediated this relationship. Conclusion. Our results highlight the continuing need for including MSM who engage in sex work and those who experience syndemic conditions in the prevention strategies targeted to MSM in Latin America and Suriname, to prevent the transmission of HIV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Meaningful involvement of people with HIV and affected communities in HIV cure research is essential to ensuring that cure research efforts are conducted transparently, socially justly, and ethically. This study set out to investigate how people with HIV and affected communities are involved in cure research in the Netherlands and explore what can be done to optimize involvement and engagement. Methods: Eighty-five semi-structured online, telephone, and face-to-face interviews were conducted with people with HIV (N = 30), key populations (N = 35), and key informants (KI; N = 20) in the field of HIV. The interviews were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Awareness of the meaningful involvement of people with HIV (MIPA) efforts was low among people with HIV and key populations, which contrasted with KI, who exhibited greater awareness. People with HIV and KI emphasized the importance of MIPA in ensuring the representation of lived experiences in HIV cure research and fostering trust between communities and researchers. Practical implementations of MIPA were unclear, ultimately resulting in difficulties defining MIPA beyond clinical trial participation. People with HIV and key populations also doubted their skills and self-efficacy to make meaningful contributions when confronted with involvement beyond participating in research and clinical trials. Conclusions: MIPA is crucial for improving the quality, transparency, and ethical conduct of HIV cure research. It emphasizes the need for increased awareness and funding, standardized guidelines to ensure meaningful involvement, and combat tokenism and misconceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LGBT-related hate crime is a conscious act of aggression against an LGBT citizen. The present research investigates associations between hate crime, psychological well-being, trust in the police and intentions to report future experiences of hate crime. A survey study was conducted among 391 LGBT respondents in the Netherlands. Sixteen percent experienced hate crime in the 12 months prior. Compared to nonvictims, victims had significant lower psychological well-being, lower trust in the police and lower intentions to report future hate crime. Hate crime experience and lower psychological well-being were associated with lower reporting intentions through lower trust in the police. Helping hate crime victims cope with psychological distress in combination with building trust in the police could positively influence future reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite close monitoring of HIV infections amongst MSM (MSMHIV), the true prevalence can be masked for areas with small population density or lack of data. This study investigated the feasibility of small area estimation with a Bayesian approach to improve HIV surveillance. Data from EMIS-2017 (Dutch subsample, n = 3,459) and the Dutch survey SMS-2018 (n = 5,653) were utilized. We applied a frequentist calculation to compare the observed relative risk of MSMHIV per Public Health Services (GGD) region in the Netherlands and a Bayesian spatial analysis and ecological regression to quantify how spatial heterogeneity in HIV amongst MSM is related to determinants while accounting for spatial dependence to obtain more robust estimates. Both estimations converged and confirmed that the prevalence is heterogenous across the Netherlands with some GGD regions having a higher-than-average risk. Our Bayesian spatial analysis to assess the risk of MSMHIV was able to close data gaps and provide more robust prevalence and risk estimations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research conceives of morally courageous behavior as goal-directed behavior and extends its investigation from a mere situational approach to a more comprehensive understanding including dispositional determinants related to self-regulatory processes. We tested the assumption that individual difference variables differentially affect the appraisal of the two core constituents of moral courage, namely, norm violation and risk of intervention. In two samples from different cultural (Switzerland/Austria vs. The Netherlands) as well as educational (university vs. representative population sample) backgrounds, participants evaluated norm violation and risk of intervention for six vignettes of situations calling for moral courage. Across both samples, self-transcendence values (benevolence, universalism) predicted the perception of norm violation, whereas personality factors related to affective self-regulation in stressful situations (behavioral inhibition system, state orientation) predicted the perception of intervention risk. These results provide evidence for the imperative of accounting for individual differences in the self-regulation of moral courage behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Females are perceived to have less power than males. These differences in perceived power might render different self-regulatory strategies appropriate: Women should (as members of other low-power groups) care about security, whereas men should (as members of other high-power groups) strive for accomplishment. These regulatory implications of gender provide the basis for regulatory fit between individuals' gender and their regulatory focus. Higher fit should lead to stronger gender-based ingroup favoritism: Prevention-focused females and promotion-focused males were expected to show more ingroup favoritism than both sexes in the respective other regulatory focus. According to the regulatory fit hypothesis, this effect should occur for evaluative- but not for stereotype-based ingroup favoritism. Three studies supported these hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A regular equivalence on a relation induces matrix blocks that are either 0-blocks or regular-blocks, where a regular-block contains at least one positive entry in each row and column. The authors devise both a permutation test and an exact statistical test that separates these two aspects of regular equivalence, 0-blocks and regular-blocks. To test for the regular-block property, the natural test statistic is the number of rows and columns within each purported regular-block that fail to meet the criteria of having at least one positive entry. This statistic is computed for permutations that fix each regular-block as a whole (alternatively, within each sub-row), except for diagonal blocks, for which the diagonal entries are individually fixed. The exact test is derived by assuming that the number of zeros in each block is fixed and that each permutation of zeros is uniformly distributed. This implies that the probability of finding, say, k zeros in a given set of rows and columns follows the hypergeometric distribution, known in physics as the Fermi-Dirac statistics. These results from the separate blocks are combined by convolution to give the distribution of k zero vectors in the matrix as a whole. These tests were applied to data sets from Sampson's Monastery, Wasserman and Faust's Countries Trade Networks, Krackhardt's High-Tech Managers, and B.J. Cole's Dominance Hierarchies in Leptothorax ants. In all four cases, the 0-blocks were very significant, having only a tiny fraction of permutations with fewer errors than was found in the data. With the regular-blocks, however, there was no significant relation in the Countries data and a significant overall tendency in the other three data sets toward having more departures from regular 1-blocks in the data than in the permuted matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]