16th International AIDS Conference Toronto, Canada - August 13 - 18, 2006

EXPERIENCES AND REFLECTIONS ON DELIVERING AN HIV/AIDS PROGRAMME WITH, AND FOR, IMMIGRANTS AND MOBILE POPULATIONS IN AUSTRALIA

Int Conf AIDS. 2006 Aug 13-18;16 Abstract No. MoAc0301

Katsaros E., Eisenberg M., Sabri W., McMahon T., Paljor S., Yaman R., Luisi B., Kerr L.
Multicultural HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C Service, Sydney, Australia

ISSUES: Immigrants and mobile populations present challenges for delivering HIV/AIDS responses at global and national levels. In Australia, immigrants now represent 21% of HIV notifications. Among immigrants there are higher proportions of women and heterosexual men, generally lower proportions of MSM, and an over-representation of people from high HIV prevalence countries. There is increasing evidence of HIV inequalities in access to services, health literacy and health outcomes among immigrants.

DESCRIPTION: The Multicultural HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C Service has endeavoured to address these inequalities since 1991. The programme includes initiatives in community development, work with immigrant media, and bilingual/bicultural support for PLWHA within a health promotion framework implemented by a workforce from 20 cultural backgrounds. The paper will outline research among Australian immigrants and explore the strengths and weaknesses, using programme examples, of approaches to address HIV/AIDS among immigrants.

LESSONS LEARNED: The programme strengths include employing a casual multicultural workforce to implement initiatives with, and for, their respective communities with cultural and linguistic appropriateness delivered "in-house", while the support provided to PLWHA feeds into broader health promotion activities. The programme has also developed a framework for prioritising specific immigrant communities within cultural diversity of Australia’s population.

Weaknesses include the trade-off between cultural specificity and efforts to reach multiple communities - as the programme cannot sustain intensive work with each of the 20 communities. The programme is also largely unable to address the wider social context impinging on immigrants’ health such as gender issues, immigration status, and racism.

RECOMMENDATIONS: The programme experience points towards a pragmatic and sustainable response to HIV/AIDS among multiple immigrant populations, working within the constraints of (comparatively) limited resources to deliver on the rhetoric of a "cultural and linguistic appropriate" response to HIV/AIDS. This experience may be particularly relevant to delivering HIV/AIDS responses in national programmes among immigrants and mobile populations.

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2006-08-13
MoAc0301

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