In this issue:
- SHAWNA Project Updates
- GSHI at CAHR 2015
- Women, HIV and the Law
- Recent Publications
SHAWNA Project Updates
- SHAWNA, our 5-year CIHR-funded research project focusing on the social, policy, legal, gender, and geographic gaps in women’s sexual health and HIV care across Metro Vancouver has been officially launched! In the summer and fall of 2014, the GSHI team was busy meeting with partner organizations, collaborators as well as reaching out to community service providers and women living with HIV for feedback on the initial stages of the project. A summary of consultation process and the priorities identified by women living with HIV involved can be found on the GSHI website here. With this input from community experts, we began piloting the questionnaire in the fall, as we were building and training our team of researchers and outreach workers. We are pleased to announce that the SHAWNA Project successfully launched in January 2015, and we have been enrolling many new women in the project over the winter and early spring. Look out for updates on the project in future newsletters as well as on our website!
- We are very excited to introduce the new SHAWNA Peer Research Associates! The SHAWNA PRAs provide an on-the-ground presence for the team, as they work together to do outreach to community organizations as well as to individual women. Each of the new PRAs is profiled on our website, and collectively bring decades of experience working in research, outreach and community service provision. We are very happy to welcome everyone to the GSHI!
- The first meetings of both the Positive Women’s Advisory Board and the SHAWNA Project Community Advisory Board have taken place. These two advisories have been formed in order to ensure that the ongoing work of the SHAWNA Project team reflects the concerns and realities of women living with HIV. We are very excited to be working with the individuals and organizations who have committed to this important process, including Oak Tree Clinic/ BC Women’s, Positive Haven, Positive Living, Pacific AIDS Network, Positive Women’s Network, Afro-Canadian Positive Network of BC, McLaren Housing, WISH Drop-in Centre Society, AIDS Vancouver, YouthCO, and the IDC from St. Paul’s Hospital
GSHI at CAHR 2015
- The GSHI was well-represented at the 2015 conference of the Canadian Association for HIV Research, with a number of talks and oral presentations highlighting work from our team. Dr. Kate Shannon was invited to give a plenary presentation at CAHR 2015. Her presentation, titled ‘Criminalization, Sex Work, and HIV: From Research to Action’ summarized key evidence globally on criminalization and sex work, violence and HIV and access to care among sex workers, and experience and lessons learned in working with community and translating research to policy and practice. A link to Dr. Shannon’s presentation can be found on our website here.
Women, HIV and the Law
- GSHI researchers have received a new grant, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, to review global evidence, gaps in policy and practice, and inform research moving forward on the impacts of the criminalization of HIV on women’s lived experiences including violence and fear of violence by partners, stigma, discrimination and barriers to accessing care and support services. The new “Women, HIV and the Law” Project will be led by Co-Principal Investigators Drs. Andrea Krüsi and Kate Shannon, and lead knowledge users from the Positive Women’s Network (Marcie Summers) and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (Alison Symington and Cecile Kazatchkine). This project represents an opportunity to shed light on the many ways in which criminalization of non-disclosure of HIV status affects the lives of women living with HIV, and will complement the ongoing work of the SHAWNA Project.
We also want to share these recent GSHI publication
- Trafficking, migration, and health: complexities and future directions. Goldenberg SM. Lancet Global Health, March 2015. Dr. Shira Goldenberg of the GSHI recently published an editorial in the March issue of the Lancet Global Health journal. In this commentary, Dr. Goldenberg highlights the problematic practice of conflating trafficking and sex work, and how this approach does a serious disservice to both sex workers and people who have been trafficked, and results in legal and policy approaches that worsen dangerous conditions for both groups. Read the Full Publication
- Violence prevention and municipal licensing of indoor sex work venues in the Greater Vancouver Area: narratives of migrant sex workers, managers and business owners. Anderson S, Jia JX, Liu V, Chettiar J, Krusi A, Allan S, Maher L, Shannon K Cult Health Sex, 2015. This paper is based on a qualitative study with sex workers as well as managers and owners of indoor sex venues, and has shown that the process of obtaining and keeping a business license has serious impacts on the way in which these businesses are able to operate, as well as the ability of managers and sex workers to put policies into practice which promote safety, health, and human rights of sex workers. Read the Full Publication
- Sex Work and Motherhood: Social and Structural Barriers to Health and Social Services for Pregnant and Parenting Street and Off-Street Sex Workers. Duff P, Shoveller J, Chettiar J, Feng C, Nicoletti R, Shannon K. Health Care Women Int. 2014. This paper found that among participants in the AESHA cohort who had ever been pregnant or had parented children (almost 80% of all participants), over one third had experienced barriers to health and social services while pregnant/parenting, including lack of financial support, fear of partner violence, fear of child apprehension and more. For further details, read our Community Summary, Policy Brief or the Full Publication.
- Uptake of a women-only, sex-work-specific drop-in center and links with sexual and reproductive health care for sex workers. Kim SR, Soldenberg SM, Duff P, Nguyen P, Gibson K, Shannon K. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics 2014. A recent GSHI report that showed that sex workers who access the WISH Drop-In Centre in Vancouver, BC were more likely to have accessed sexual and reproductive health services in the last 6 months. This study shows that creating supportive and empowering environments is an effective way to improve health care access. Read our Community Summary, Policy Brief or the Full Publication.