Evaluation of the Making Employment Needs (MEN) Count Intervention to Reduce HIV/STI Risk for Black Heterosexual Men in Washington DC

The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of MEN Count, a race- and gender-tailored three-session counseling intervention, on HIV/STI incidence as well as housing and employment. A two-armed quasi-experimental design was used to compare MEN Count to an attention comparison condition focused on stress reduction, from March 2014 to April 2017. Participants (N = 454) were Black heterosexual men in Washington DC, largely recruited from an STI clinic. Multivariate difference-in-difference regressions assessed whether the intervention was associated with significant changes in the outcomes set, which included nonviral STI incidence, sexual risk categorization, housing, and employment. Significant improvements over time were observed across both treatment arms for all outcomes (p < .05). Reductions in unemployment were significantly greater for intervention than for control participants (AOR unemployment = 0.48, 95% CI [0.23, 0.99]). Improvements in other outcomes did not differ significantly by treatment group. In dose analyses, participants receiving all intervention sessions were significantly less likely than control participants to have experienced homelessness in the 90 days prior (AOR= 0.31, 95% CI [0.10, 0.96]) and to be unemployed (AOR = 0.37, 95% CI [0.14, 0.96]). The MEN Count intervention offers a promising approach to address structural risk factors for STI, but not STI itself, among this largely STI clinic-based sample.