Facebook's popularity may be on the decline (thanks to teenagers who said earlier this year that they reviled the social networking site's increasing adult presence[1] ), but it's gained favor this week among health researchers who found that it could be a useful tool in persuading people at high risk of HIV/AIDS to get tested for the disease.


Check out how Facebook intervention could lead to increased HIV testing and more notes on the black health chart this week.



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  • Facebook Chats Prompt At-Risk Men To Get Tested For HIV


    Online social networking has grown exponentially among African Americans and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), a trend that has led researchers to believe that <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/behavioral-psychology-social-media-248056.aspx" target="_blank">the site could be used to relay HIV prevention messages</a>. In a 12-week study of gay men from the Los Angeles area, researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine and School of Public Health at UCLA randomly assigned study participants to two different types of groups -- one, led by people who sent information on HIV prevention and testing through Facebook to their members, and another, which was led by people who sent their members information on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Every four weeks, participants in both groups were offered free HIV home test kits. Over the 12 weeks, 44 percent of the men in the group getting HIV prevention information via Facebook asked for a kit, compared with 20 percent in the control group. 16 percent of the men in the HIV prevention group mailed in the test kit, compared with just four percent of the men getting general health information. "The high rates of request for home-based HIV testing kits suggest that pairing these kits with HIV interventions involving social networking may be a feasible and acceptable testing method among at-risk, stigmatized groups," the study authors concluded.




  • Black Women Are Less Likely To Be Vaccinated Against HPV


    Though public health officials have touted its efficacy and safety, a survey of data from 2,200 females aged 15 to 24 between 2006 and 2010 showed that while one-third of white females said they'd at least started taking the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection that can cause cervical cancer, <a href="http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2013/08/30/black-women-less-likely-to-get-hpv-vaccine-study" target="_blank">only 18 percent of black women said they had</a>. Some point to black women's negative attitude toward the vaccine, suggesting that <a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1444519#ixzz2e7Ux9ks4" target="_blank">theories suggest</a> that perhaps these women realize that while these vaccines are designed to help prevent an HPV infection, they do nothing for someone who is already infected. Other's say provider-level factors are what's contributing to under-vaccination among black women. In this week's study conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the disparity persisted, regardless of income or access to health care. "Given that cervical cancer is more common and associated with higher mortality in African-American and Hispanic women than in white women, it is especially important to understand the barriers to HPV vaccination for these populations," study author, Sonya Borrero, said.




  • Hormone Therapy Increases Breast Cancer Risk, But Not For Black Women


    Although studies have demonstrated a positive association between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer risk, this association varies by race and other factors, a new study shows. Analyzing more than 1.6 million screening mammograms of postmenopausal women aged 45 years or older, <a href="http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/08/26/jnci.djt207.abstract" target="_blank">researchers found an increased risk of breast cancer in white, Asian, and Hispanic hormone therapy user, but not in blacks</a>. In addition, obese women and those with less dense breasts were less prone to developing breast cancer after using hormone therapy. Hormone therapy has been used to alleviate menopause symptoms, but its link with an increase in breast-cancer risk led to fewer hormone prescriptions for postmenopausal women, and a concurrent decrease in breast-cancer incidence shortly thereafter, the researchers noted.