Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus
A grassroots organization led by Black gay, bisexual, and same gender loving men, whose vision is a world where our community experiences complete physical, mental and social well-being.
This includes eliminating HIV within our community, which we define as preventing all new HIV infections and ensuring every man in our community living with HIV achieves a sustained undetectable status.
*Warning: This page and programs contain HIV prevention messages that may not be appropriate for all audience. Since HIV spread is primarily through sexual practices or by sharing needles, prevention messages and programs may address these topics. *
Prosperity Project
In the late spring of 2019, Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus (CBGMC) partnered with Morten Group, LLC to co-facilitate a community-driven needs assessment of and strategic planning process for the Chicago-area population of Black gay, bisexual, and same gender loving men.
The long-term goals of this endeavor are to (1) increase antiretroviral medication use for HIV PrEP and HIV treatment and (2) move the community closer to the elimination of HIV via the Prosperity Project.
Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP), the community-wide needs assessment and strategic planning framework for improving public health, was utilized as part of a holistic and participatory means to develop structural intervention(s) addressing social and structural determinants of health. This framework included addressing the four elements of (1) Community Themes and Strengths; (2) Community Health Assessment; (3) Forces of Change; and (4) Local Public Health Assessment as key parts of the overall assessment. These elements were incorporated within the various phases of the process beginning with project initiation and continuing through strategy development, including the steps of organizing for success and developing partners; visioning; conducting the assessments; identifying strategic issues; and formulating strategies to address the issues.
This report contains a description of the data collected through surveys and focus groups, as well as the process used in sharing and contextualizing the data collection findings among community members and other stakeholders. As part of this process and in order to build upon the subsequent momentum raised, strategies are identified to address the issues discovered in the data findings. These recommendations serve as a springboard for future work in relationship to the following social determinants of health (SDOH) affecting Black gay, bisexual, and same gender loving men in Chicago
