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Public health
Protocol
Longitudinal cohort of HIV-negative transgender women of colour in New York City: protocol for the TURNNT (‘Trying to Understand Relationships, Networks and Neighbourhoods among Transgender women of colour’) study
  1. Denton Callander1,
  2. John A Schneider2,3,
  3. Asa Radix4,
  4. Basile Chaix5,
  5. Roberta Scheinmann1,
  6. Gia Love1,
  7. Jordyn Smith1,
  8. Seann D Regan1,
  9. Ichiro Kawachi6,
  10. Kiara St James7,
  11. Yusuf Ransome8,
  12. Cristina Herrera9,
  13. Sari L Reisner10,11,
  14. Ceyenne Doroshow12,
  15. Tonia Poteat13,
  16. Kim Watson14,
  17. Rachel Bluebond-Langner15,
  18. Nala Toussaint4,
  19. Robert Garofalo16,17,
  20. Jae Sevelius18,
  21. Dustin T Duncan1
  1. 1Department of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, New York, USA
  2. 2Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  3. 3Howard Brown Health Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  4. 4Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, New York, New York, USA
  5. 5Institut Pierre Louis d’Épidémiologie et de Santé Publique, Sorbonne Université, Paris, Île-de-France, France
  6. 6Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  7. 7New York Transgender Advocacy Group, New York, New York, USA
  8. 8Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
  9. 9Translatinx Network, New York, New York, USA
  10. 10Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  11. 11Fenway Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  12. 12Gay and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society, New York, New York, USA
  13. 13Department of Social Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  14. 14Community Kinship Life, New York, New York, USA
  15. 15Hansjorg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
  16. 16Department of Pediatrics & Preventive Medicine, Ann and Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  17. 17Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  18. 18Center for Excellence for Transgender Health, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dustin T Duncan; dd3018{at}columbia.edu

Abstract

Introduction In the USA, transgender women are among the most vulnerable to HIV. In particular, transgender women of colour face high rates of infection and low uptake of important HIV prevention tools, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). This paper describes the design, sampling methods, data collection and analyses of the TURNNT (‘Trying to Understand Relationships, Networks and Neighbourhoods among Transgender women of colour’) study. In collaboration with communities of transgender women of colour, TURNNT aims to explore the complex social and environmental (ie, neighbourhood) structures that affect HIV prevention and other aspects of health in order to identify avenues for intervention.

Methods and analyses TURNNT is a prospective cohort study, which will recruit 300 transgender women of colour (150 Black/African American, 100 Latina and 50 Asian/Pacific Islander participants) in New York City. There will be three waves of data collection separated by 6 months. At each wave, participants will provide information on their relationships, social and sexual networks, and neighbourhoods. Global position system technology will be used to generate individual daily path areas in order to estimate neighbourhood-level exposures. Multivariate analyses will be conducted to assess cross-sectional and longitudinal, independent and synergistic associations of personal relationships (notably individual social capital), social and sexual networks, and neighbourhood factors (notably neighbourhood-level social cohesion) with PrEP uptake and discontinuation.

Ethics and dissemination The TURNNT protocol was approved by the Columbia University Institutional Review Board (reference no. AAAS8164). This study will provide novel insights into the relationship, network and neighbourhood factors that influence HIV prevention behaviours among transgender women of colour and facilitate exploration of this population’s health and well-being more broadly. Through community-based dissemination events and consultation with policy makers, this foundational work will be used to guide the development and implementation of future interventions with and for transgender women of colour.

  • HIV & AIDS
  • epidemiology
  • sexual medicine
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-032876

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @dentoncallander, @drdustinduncan

    • Contributors Ten of this protocol’s 21 authors identify as transgender, 12 identify as people of color and seven identify as transgender women of color. The study was conceived by DTD with support from DC, JAS and AR. DC lead the manuscript preparation with guidance from RS and DTD. RS, GL and JoS led the design of the research interview and focus-testing of all data collection. BC, SDR and DTD led the development of this study’s spatial methods while JAS led the network components. IK and YR led the development of the social cohesion and social capital measures. KSJ, CH, CD, KW and NT comprise the study’s Community Advisory Board and guided the data collection, participant recruitment and participant retention. RBL, AR and RG offered clinical expertise, while JaS, YR and TP supported this study’s conceptual and theoretical development. All authors reviewed and provided input on manuscript drafts and the final submission.

    • Funding The Trying to Understand Relationships, Networks and Neighbourhoods among Transgender women of colour (TURNNT) study is funded through two grants from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (Grant Numbers: R01MD013554-02 and R01MD013554-02S1; Principal Investigator: Dustin T. Duncan, ScD). Dr Basile Chaix was supported by Inserm and by the European Research Council.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.