ssh-chemsex-study-final-main-report

3.1 THE EMIS SAMPLE
The European Men-who-have-sex-with-men Internet
Survey (EMIS) was an anonymous, self-administered
online survey conducted simultaneously in 25 languages
across 38 countries in Europe. The survey was open
during June, July and August 2010. Respondents were
recruited through 230 social and community websites
for MSM. Typical completion time was 20 minutes. No
financial incentives were given and no IP addresses were
collected. The questionnaire is available at www.emisproject.eu.
A detailed account of the methods can be
found elsewhere (Weatherburn et al, 2013).
EMIS polled 174,209 MSM living in Europe, of which
15,423 lived in England. As with all national surveys of
MSM, more respondents indicated that they lived in
Lambeth than any other borough in England. Southwark
was the third most populous borough (after Manchester)
and Lewisham the 16th most populous. The number of
men living in each borough was:
Lambeth
Southwark
Lewisham
603 men
357 men
182 men
Therefore, the EMIS database includes 1142 men living
in LSL. This was 22.8% of the men living in London and
8.3% of those living in England. These data suggest LSL
is home to more homosexually active men than any other
three coterminous local authority areas in England. In
the following sections we compare men living in LSL
with men living in the rest of London and those living
elsewhere in England. The most common sources of
recruitment for men living in LSL were websites Gaydar
(33.3%), Gay Romeo (23.6%) and Manhunt (17.2%).
3.2 SAMPLE DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
The mean age of men living in LSL was 36.6 years
(median 36 years, range17-76). This was not significantly
different to the rest of London or the rest of England.
However the standard deviation in LSL was smaller at 9.5
years compared with 11.2 in the rest of London and 12.8 in
the rest of England, suggesting both fewer younger and
fewer older men in LSL than elsewhere (i.e. men in LSL
are more ‘bunched’ into middle of the age range).
One in five (19.7%) of the men in LSL were living with
diagnosed HIV infection, compared with 13.7% in the
rest of London and 8.4% in the rest of England. EMIS
disproportionately recruited men with diagnosed HIV
infection (Marcus et al, 2012), so we know these figures
are overestimates for the population. However, the
differences confirm a very high prevalence of HIV among
MSM in LSL compared with elsewhere in England and in
Europe more broadly.
A total of 11.8% of the men in LSL completed the survey
in a language other than English. This was the same
proportion as the rest of London (11.9%), which is much
higher than the rest of England (4.5%). Men in LSL chose
18 other languages to participate, the most common
being Spanish (2.4%, 27 men), German (1.8%, 21 men),
Italian (1.8%, 20 men) and French (1.2%, 14 men).
The Chemsex Study | 3. DRUG USE SURVEY DATA FROM EMIS 18