Dear Engage Toronto participants,
We are notifying you of a change in one of the Engage substudies, Engage-HPV. As a participant in Engage, you were given the opportunity to consent to participating in Engage-HPV. If you opted in to participating in this substudy, you provided consent and additional specimens including an oral specimen that was collected using mouthwash and an anal specimen collected using a swab. These specimens were sent to the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) for human papillomavirus (HPV) testing. As HPV testing is not approved for diagnostic purposes, no individual results were provided but results on the Engage study can be found here https://www.engage-men.ca/our-work/articles/.
The lab your specimens were stored in at CHUM is closing due to the director’s retirement. In order to minimize risks due to transport and maintain the integrity of your specimens, we have made arrangements to transfer and store the specimens at the Research Institute McGill University Health Centre. They will be stored at the lab of Dr. Shuk On Annie Leung, an experienced HPV researcher, and co-Investigator on the Engage-HPV substudy. We will maintain the same privacy restrictions, the specimens will remain anonymous and lab staff will not have access to Engage participant information. Please note that you do not need to do anything if you would like for your specimens to remain in the study. If you would like more information, or to opt out of the Engage-HPV substudy, please contact Engage-HPV study coordinator Anna Yeung at anna.yeung@unityhealth.to or at 416-864-6060 x 77445.
Thank you to all who participated in Engage Toronto. Through your participation, you have contributed to a portrait of sexual health and well-being of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM) in GTA.
Our team will continue to work with the data we’ve collected for future publications and presentations. We encourage you to follow the work of Engage by visiting this webpage, where you can find information on new publications and presentations of study results, news items, infographics, technical summaries, and our participation in some upcoming community events! You can also subscribe to our newsletter for updates as our work continues.
The Engage Toronto team will still be present at the study site HIV Prevention Lab (105 Bond St., Rm. SBB208 (2nd floor) Toronto, ON M5B 1Y3) and our email (engagetostudy@gmail.com) and telephone number (416-979-5000 ext. 552158) will still be active.
While many things have changed over these past years, our commitment to your health and safety remains the same. To learn more about our COVID-19 response and changes to your participant experience, we encourage you to visit our COVID-19 Wellness Plan.
Hassle Free Clinic and Toronto Public Health’s Crossways Clinic are providing HIV/STI sexual health services virtually and in-person by appointment. Please check their websites for more information.
Organizations that work with gay, bi, and queer men in Toronto have shared their resources about how to access services and supports, and ways to take care of your well-being:
M-pox vaccines are available in Ontario for people who meet specific criteria. The list of vaccine clinics/locations, and dates is constantly being updated. For more information visit:
Please email us at engagetostudy@gmail.com or call us at 416-979-5000 ext. 552158 if you have any questions or concerns.
If you are coming to the office and do not have an appointment,
please phone or email us to make sure that staff will be available that day.
Engage is a voluntary sexual health research study with gay, bi, and queer men, including trans and 2-spirit men and other men who have sex with men, of all HIV statuses. The study is happening in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, with guys aged 16+. Engage is a cohort study, which means that several hundred guys are recruited into the study and then those same guys regularly participate in the study every 6 months for up to 4 years so that we can look at trends in behaviours and experiences overtime.
If you have completed an Engage study visit already, you may be eligible to complete a follow-up study visit. Contact engagetostudy@gmail.com to book your next follow-up study visit. You can also call us at 416-979-5000 ext. 552158 (please follow the operator’s instructions).
Participation begins with a study visit. The visit will take approximately 2-3 hours to complete, and consists of the following:
Those participants who have given us permission to contact them about other study opportunities will be invited to return for follow-up study visits (1 and 2 years later and then every six months after that for another 3 years). These study visits will be similar to the first study visit but only require completion of a computer survey and STI testing.
Participants are given a $50 cash honorarium for each full study visit. They also have the option of putting some or all of their honorarium money towards draw tickets ($10 each) to enter one or both of the draws that we will be doing on a regular basis for a $250 Best Buy gift card and a $2000 travel voucher.
Recruitment for the study began in May 2017. Data collection is expected to proceed until the end of 2023.
The Engage Toronto site is led by the following people:
A number of individuals are involved in the execution of day-to-day Engage activities, including working with participants and entering participants’ clinical data into databases for analysis. These individuals include research support staff (Abbie Parlette, Samer Lazkani, Anna Yeung, Alexandre Schnubb), volunteer research assistants, study nurses (A. Cappa, Evan Campbell, Christopher Draenos), and post-doctoral fellows (Dr. Syed Noor, Dr. Mark Gaspar, Dr. Shayna Skakoon-Sparling).
Click here to learn more about the Engage team. You can also visit hivprevlab.ca to learn more about the Ryerson University HIV Prevention Lab.
If you have a personal relationship with any of our team members and do not feel comfortable participating in Engage as a result, you do not have to consent to participation. Please use our contact information below to let us know if you have any concerns about working with any of our team members.
Our staff represent a wide range of backgrounds in terms of gender and sexuality, among other aspects of identity. You may work with several different staff members during your study visit, and they are all competent in LGBTQ-affirmative care. In the same way that they are expected to treat you with respect, we ask that you also show them respect during your study visit.
In Toronto, the Engage study is funded by the following organizations:
105 Bond St., Rm. SBB208 (2nd floor) Toronto, ON M5B 1Y3 
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Telephone: 416-979-5000 ext. 552158
Email: engagetostudy@gmail.com
