HIV is one of the defining diseases of the last thirty years and despite billions spent on researching treatment, vaccines, and causes; it continues to impact tens of millions of people worldwide. Sexual transmission remains the key route of infection in the majority of new cases with sex between men in minority ethnic communities one of the highest-identified risks.
Misconceptions of the definitions of men who have sex with men (“MSM”) and Black and Minority Ethnic (“BME”) populations influence the ways in which health promotion agencies—whether private, public, or non-profit—interact with these target populations. This in turn impacts the likelihood of successful public health outcomes, such as reduced HIV incidence rates, improved safe sex behaviours for HIV positive individuals, and robust, accurate education provision.
In this paper we contextualise the need for highly developed health interventions to improve the sexual health of BME MSM, as well as critically discuss the effect that the very designation “BME MSM” has on both sexual health epidemiology and our ability to understand current trends and bring future HIV infections under control
