Engaging sexual minority adolescents in nationwide at-home HIV prevention research in the U.S

•Online survey data was collected from 1,319 sexual minority males in the U.S. aged 13-19.•A majority (70.8%) of participants worried that their parent or caregiver would discover communications from HIV research staff.•A majority (76.1%) of participants worried that their parent or caregiver might open mail related to an HIV study.•237 participants expressed privacy concerns that required additional phone screening before study enrollment.•Study staff couldn't reach 169 participants (71.3%) after three phone attempts to follow up on privacy concerns from the screener. This study examined research-related privacy and confidentiality concerns among adolescent sexual minority males (ASMM) and provides lessons learned to inform recruitment and enrollment strategies for this population. Participants were a 2017–2018 internet-based U.S. national sample of sexual minority adolescents who responded to self-report measures of privacy and confidentiality concerns. Results: Bivariate chi-square tests were used to identify participants’ mean differences in worry and likelihood of privacy breach occurrences. Many participants reported privacy-related concerns within remote HIV prevention research. Study protocols were designed to ensure participants felt safe participating in online HIV prevention research. However, there are challenges to enroll participants with rigorous protocols for ensuring safety and privacy.