From Theory to Practice: Implementation of a Resource Allocation Model in Health Departments.

Objective: To develop a resource allocation model to optimize health departments' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded HIV prevention budgets to prevent the most new cases of HIV infection and to evaluate the model's implementation in 4 health departments.

Design, Settings, And Participants: We developed a linear programming model combined with a Bernoulli process model that allocated a fixed budget among HIV prevention interventions and risk subpopulations to maximize the number of new infections prevented. The model, which required epidemiologic, behavioral, budgetary, and programmatic data, was implemented in health departments in Philadelphia, Chicago, Alabama, and Nebraska.

Transactional sex among men who have sex with men in Latin America: economic, sociodemographic, and psychosocial factors.

Objectives: We assessed factors associated with engagement in transactional sex among men who have sex with men recruited from one of the largest Internet sites for men seeking social or sexual interactions with other men in Latin America.

Methods: We constructed multilevel logistic regression models to analyze factors associated with engagement in transactional sex in 17 Latin American countries in 2012.

Results: Of 24 051 respondents, 1732 (7.

Sex and gender in the US health surveillance system: a call to action.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data have exposed significant sexual orientation disparities in health. Interest in examining the health of transgender youths, whose gender identities or expressions are not fully congruent with their assigned sex at birth, highlights limitations of the YRBS and the broader US health surveillance system. In 2009, we conducted the mixed-methods Massachusetts Gender Measures Project to develop and cognitively test measures for adolescent health surveillance surveys.

Reporting guidelines and the American Journal of Public Health's adoption of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses.

Widespread recognition of the need to improve the science of published research, as well as the moral and ethical reasons for adequately reporting study results, has spurred recent interest in strengthening journal research reporting through the use of reporting guidelines. Reporting guidelines also provide information for readers to judge study quality. American Journal of Public Health previously adopted the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials and Transparent Reporting of Evaluations With Nonrandomized Designs guidelines and recently endorsed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

Transgender health in Massachusetts: results from a household probability sample of adults.

Despite higher rates of unemployment and poverty among transgender adults (n = 131; 0.5% weighted) than among nontransgender adults (n = 28,045) in our population-based Massachusetts household sample, few health differences were observed between transgender and nontransgender adults. Transgender adults who are stably housed and participated in a telephone health survey may represent the healthiest segment of the transgender population.

Sexual orientation differences in asthma correlates in a population-based sample of adults.

To understand what conditions may correlate with asthma diagnoses in the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) population, we used Massachusetts Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to construct multivariable logistic regression models separately for LGB individuals and heterosexuals. Current or former smoking and obesity were positively associated with history of an asthma diagnosis among both LGB individuals and heterosexuals. Being underweight (negative correlation) and overweight and reporting frequent symptoms of depression in the preceding 30 days also predicted a history of asthma diagnosis among heterosexuals.

A population-based study of sexual orientation identity and gender differences in adult health.

Objectives: We provide estimates of several leading US adult health indicators by sexual orientation identity and gender to fill gaps in the current literature.

Methods: We aggregated data from the 2001-2008 Massachusetts Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance surveys (N = 67,359) to examine patterns in self-reported health by sexual orientation identity and gender, using multivariable logistic regression.

Results: Compared with heterosexuals, sexual minorities (i.