Increasing awareness and knowledge
STIS
Community Navigators considered important intervention successes to include increased awareness of prevalent health disparities and increased knowledge about sexual health and about resources to address disparities. Community Navigators expressed that, among their social networks, there was a general lack of awareness of how young GBMSM and transgender women of colour, and particularly those in the US South, were disproportionately affected by STIs and HIV and by social determinants such as unemployment. When educating social network members about these disparities many Community Navigators reported witnessing a ‘light bulb’ moment where social network members internalized information about sexual health and local employment and education resources.Community Navigators also successfully promoted broader definitions of sexual health, noting that within their communities sexual health had typically been equated with condom use or abstinence only. Through participating in 