Exploring the access to PrEP among Brazilian migrant men who have sex with men: Comparative study in London and Lisbon

New HIV diagnoses in the UK and Portugal have decreased in recent years.
Nonetheless, men who have sex with men (MSM) remain disproportionately
affected. The World Health Organization recommends that MSM should be offered
pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV. PrEP is a pill taken daily or on demand
before sex, which protects users from the virus. Portugal implemented PrEP in
2017 and England in 2020. Unofficial estimates indicate that up to 300,000
Brazilian migrants live in the UK and 300,000 in Portugal. Some of these are
irregular migrants, which limits their access to public health services.
In this context, I seek to explore the access of Brazilian migrant MSM in London
and Lisbon to PrEP. This will help to understand how the different health systems
address the provision of PrEP, while paying attention to the socio-cultural
specificities of Brazilian MSM migrants. My approach will include semi-structured
interviews and participant observation.
This proposal fills research gaps in relation to the use of PrEP among vulnerable
populations. Comparative studies contribute to new perceptions about the impact
of wider socio-political contexts on migration and health, as well as to the
identification of potential practices and policies to be transferred from one
country to another. This is relevant in the post-Brexit scenario, in which the UK is
changing its migration policies, and when considering the diversity of
contemporary migration within the European Union.