Men Matter: Male Engagement in HIV Services in Kenya

While men have more power, privilege, and influence in many societies, men’s health outcomes are substantially worse than those of women, and this disparity manifests in the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Though tremendous strides have been made globally in access to life-saving HIV treatment, men have lower HIV testing rates than women, and treatment coverage among men lags behind that of women.  Even on treatment, men have worse clinical outcomes compared to women, with significantly higher mortality.  “Men Matter: Male Engagement in HIV Services in Kenya” will utilize an interdisciplinary team to conduct formative research with men living with HIV and health care workers who provide care to this population in order to garner their perceptions on barriers and facilitators to engaging men in HIV care.  Project findings will be disseminated at a learning workshop at Columbia Global Center in Nairobi, Kenya to elaborate on their relevance to advancing men’s health more broadly.  As HIV care has transformed health care delivery in much of the world by developing a chronic care model where none previously existed, lessons learned on enhancing men’s engagement in HIV services will substantially accelerate efforts to control the HIV epidemic and may help improve men’s use of other health services and health outcomes more generally.