P399 Evaluation of Community Based HIV/STI testing Program Tailored to Black MSM in a Southeast US City

Background Black MSM (BMSM) are disproportionately burdened by HIV and STIs in the US. Structural barriers to HIV/STI testing in clinical settings, including prior negative experiences, concerns about privacy/confidentiality and limited care access, compound disparities by contributing to delayed treatment and ongoing transmission. Testing modalities circumventing these barriers are needed for this priority population. Methods We recruited 25 MSM (mean age=35;SD=11; 88% Black) following their participation in Safe Spaces and Places (SSP) – a community-based, online-linked, mobile van HIV/STI testing modality in Baltimore, MD. Participants completed 60-minute semi-structured interviews exploring their perceptions of SSP relative to clinic-based testing experiences. Interview transcripts were doubled coded until there was group consensus and analyzed using a constant comparative approach. Results Participants described a preference for the SSP testing modality compared to their clinic-based testing experiences. Three themes related to this preference emerged from the interviews: 1) greater comfort with staff and testing environment – e.g. ‘it was like a different environment than being in a hospital. And everybody was real kind and polite;’ 2) less concern with maintaining privacy/confidentiality – e.g. ‘I felt like the van is much more discrete and private... When you’re in the [STD clinic], you’re out there with a bunch of people…it’s just really crowded;’ and 3) increased accessibility – e.g. ‘I did really like the van being in the evening hours, being offered multiple days per week so that I could fit it in my schedule. I like that it shows up in different places in the community.’ Discussion Our findings suggest this majority Black sample of MSM preferred the SSP testing modality because it removed barriers to HIV/STI testing for this priority population. Increasing access to HIV/STI testing in BMSM will require identifying barriers to testing in this population and developing modalities that attend to these barriers.