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DGHI Postdoctoral Fellow Nina Yamanis has been awarded $39,976 from the Duke Center for AIDS Research (CFAR)'s Small Grants Program to study the influences of social networks on sexual partnership concurrency among young men in Tanzania. The first study of its kind in Tanzania, it builds on Yamanis' extensive research currently being published, in which she found that at-risk young men socialize at venues called "camps" and that peer social networks in these venues are a powerful influence on men's everyday decisions.
 

Yamanis and Duke sociologist James Moody, an expert in social network analysis and peer influence among US adolescents, will apply social network theory to examine how camps influence young men's ideas and attitudes about concurrent sexual partnerships and risks for HIV/AIDS in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest urban area. Yamanis' research showed that men in camps reported experiencing peer pressure to engage in sexual partnerships, such as being cajoled by peers into having sex with a female sex worker, even while having another, more permanent sexual relationship. As part of the new study, Yamanis and Moody will select 10 camps with varied concurrency prevalence rates and survey all members, up to 600 males and females, about their social interactions and concurrency. Concurrent partnerships have been cited as a key driver of HIV/STI transmission in sub-Saharan Africa and are common among youth.