Peer Education and Gay Men’s Health

Peer education is central to the way that we carry out work with gay and bisexual men at Gay Men’s Health. Almost all of our work has a basis in peer education, and our formal peer education project utilises gay and bisexual men as volunteers, talking to other gay and bisexual men on the commercial gay scene and on the internet.

What is Peer Education?

Peer education is a form of information sharing and learning between two or more people who have shared experiences and understanding of life.

Peer: within the gay community, peer education centres on the concept that gay men learn best from each other, as it is easier to relate to people on an equal level with you.

Education: by creating a safe, confidential and non-judgmental atmosphere, it is possible to enter into open discussions with people to explore issues and pass on information.  In this case education is not teaching, but assisting people in making informed and healthy decisions.

Why Peer Education?

The majority of Gay Men’s Health’s work centres on peer involvement through the use of volunteers, and by working with ideas that have come from the gay community.  This is also sometimes called Community Mobilisation or Community Development.

Peer education has been successfully used in HIV/AIDS education for a number of years, and in 1997/8 formed a large part of a research & pilot education programme with gay men in Glasgow & Edinburgh, conducted by the Medical Research Council.

For several years, Gay Men’s Health has been running a specific peer education project using trained volunteers who go out regularly onto the gay scene and internet chatrooms, building up relationships with people they meet.  They are then be able to talk together through a range of issues around condom use and the difficulties of maintaining safer sex, GUM services, Hepatitis A & B, passing on knowledge and information.

By giving men the opportunity to talk through any gay issues, they have, we will give them the chance to evaluate the way they think about safer sex in the context of their own sex lives.

Peer education is a great tool in HIV prevention.  Our peer education project has had demonstrable success in replicating the achievements of many studies of reduction of unsafe sex that other projects have achieved. 

In the early 1990s a controlled study of peer education took place in 8 cities across 4 states in America (The Kelly Study).  In each state one city was used as a control group, and the city, and one city was targeted with peer educators.

The results of this study showed that in the cities where peer education had taken place, there had been a reduction of 28% in unprotected anal intercourse, when there had been no change in the control cities.

If you are interested in applying to become a volunteer for Gay Men’s Health and join the peer education team or any other area of our extensive volunteering programme, please contact:

EDINBURGH OFFICE: James Whyte (0131 558 9444)

GLASGOW OFFICE: Tom Lusk (0141 552 0112)