Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: May 24, 2019
Date Accepted: Nov 15, 2019
Spatiotemporal analysis of men who have sex with men in mainland China
ABSTRACT
Background:
In China, the newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS cases of men who have sex with men (MSM) has increased more than tenfold since 2006. The MSM population size, geographical distribution and migration, however, are largely unknown.
Objective:
Big data from social networking were used to estimate the number, spatial distribution and migration of MSM populations in mainland China.
Methods:
We collected 85 days of data on online users of social networking MSM apps in mainland China. Daily active MSM users and MSM migration across the country were investigated during a holiday period and a non-holiday period. Using the capture-mark-recapture model, we designed an experiment consisting of two independent samples, to estimate the total provincial MSM population.
Results:
The estimate of MSM in mainland China was 8,288,536 (95% CI 8,274,931–8,302,141), accounting for 1.73% (95% CI 1.729%–1.734%) of adult men aged 18 to 64 years. The average daily number of social-networking-active MSM across mainland China was 1,198,682 during the non-holiday period. The five provinces (including municipalities) with the highest average number of daily active MSM numbers were Guangdong (141,712), Jiangsu (90,710), Zhejiang (72,212), Shandong (68,065) and Beijing (66,057). The rate of daily active MSM among adult men in different cities varied from 0.04% to 0.96%, with a mean of 0.20% and a standard deviation of 0.14%. Three immigrating centres, namely, Guangdong, Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai-Zhejiang-Jiangsu), accounted for 57.23% of MSM immigrants in the county.
Conclusions:
In China, the rate of MSM among adult men is relatively low. However, the number of MSM is very large and the distribution is uneven. MSM migration is highly affected by socioeconomic status.
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