AIDS

Nursing Week: Women's health advocate Sheila Tlou on breaking barriers in the fight for global health equity

siddiq22 — Mon, 08 May 2023 14:15:02 +0000

Nursing Week: Women's health advocate Sheila Tlou on breaking barriers in the fight for global health equity

siddiq22 Mon, 05/08/2023 - 10:15

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Sheila Tlou, Botswana's former minister of health, will give a keynote address on May 9 as part of National Nursing Week at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing (supplied image)

Rebecca Biason

Topic

Global Lens

Africa

AIDS

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Nursing

United Nations

Women's Health

World Health Organization

The University of Toronto's Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing will mark National Nursing Week with a keynote address by Sheila Tlou, Botswana's former minister of health.

Over the past few decades, Tlou – a professor, nurse, HIV prevention advocate and artist – has merged her talents as a leader in health policy and community theatre to bring about lasting change in health outcomes in eastern and southern Africa.

“Nurses are a formidable and passionate force, and I say to all the young nurses out there, 'We can make an impact anywhere and everywhere we go,'” Tlou says.

Tlou will speak on May 9 at Innis College, sharing stories of her own experience as a changemaker in global health through her work with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNAIDS and the International Council of Nurses (ICN), where she has tackled issues around HIV transmission and prevention – particularly in women and children.

Of her many accomplishments, which have included being a member of parliament for the Republic of Botswana and director of a WHO nursing and midwifery initiative for anglophone Africa, Tlou says that she is most proud of her work saving the lives of children and their mothers by significantly lowering rates of HIV transmission in communities in Botswana.

When Tlou first became Botwana's minister of health in 2004, the rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission was very high. To address this urgent issue, Tlou created a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention strategy that included engaging with community members and leaders prior to rolling out an education and awareness campaign focused on HIV testing for pregnant women, as well as treatment with antiretrovirals.

By speaking with women and those supporting them in child-rearing – including partners and mothers-in-law – Tlou and her team of nurses, nurse practitioners and midwives were able to change the stigma around HIV and encourage early testing, shifting the community’s perspective and focus onto efforts that helped women birth healthy babies.

This community-engaged approach successfully reduced the rate of mother-to-child transmission of the disease from 30 per cent in 2003 to 8 per cent in 2008.

“This success was really saying to the world, 'Look at what can be achieved in a resource-limited area through the intervention of nurses,'” Tlou says. “Now the rate of transmission is less than 1 per cent, and the stigma is so low that many women continue to get tested. However the rates of infection of HIV among women remain very high, and that is still something that needs to be addressed.”

Tlou's advocacy has always been centered around issues of gender and empowering women to improve their health through education. Before she became a nurse, Tlou was passionate about theatre, originally planning to become an actor or interpreter for the United Nations because of her love of languages.

However, with only health sciences scholarships available to her as a young university student, Tlou entered the nursing program at Dillard University in New Orleans, opting to take public health and theatre as electives to foster her knack for engaging with people.

After completing her master’s degree in nursing education and instruction from Columbia University in New York City, Tlou returned to Botswana to teach community-health nursing and also co-directed a travelling theatre group that performed plays – some which imparted health-focused messages about family planning and spacing out pregnancies.

“Being able to take this practical public-health message out into the communities and villages was uplifting for the nursing students involved, because they could see the impact of community engagement from a nursing perspective,” Tlou says.

Though now retired, Tlou – who taught at the University of Botswana for decades – continues to work as a consultant on health promotion strategy for organizations such as the African Union, the United Nations and the WHO on efforts to reduce deaths from malaria, in addition to her work on HIV/AIDS.

During Nursing Week and beyond, Tlou wants nurses around the world to remember the importance not just of bedside care, but of community impact – and the ability of nurses to break down barriers that contribute to inequity in health care.

“My advice to current and future nurses is to look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals in your region, meet with nursing associations and find your niche,” Tlou says.

“As nurses, we need to make ourselves visible – and that includes in how we mentor the next generation."

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National Nursing Week

'Re-imagine everything': How U of T's Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco helped profs adjust to online teaching

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 19:54:10 +0000

'Re-imagine everything': How U of T's Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco helped profs adjust to online teaching

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 06/17/2021 - 15:54

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Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco, a part-time assistant professor of learning innovation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, says his life experiences taught him that upheaval is an opportunity to be embraced, not feared (photo by Adam Coish)

Topic

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

HIV

Learning

LGBTQ

A longtime AIDS activist and community based researcher, Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco was tapped to be online engagement guru at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health last summer – just as the school was making the transition to online instruction.

The 58-year-old former Vancouverite was asked to join the school to help professors – who are often much younger than himself – learn how to teach online.

Ibáñez-Carrasco says he has heard many reasons why online education isn’t as good as in-person instruction – but he has a solution for seemingly everything. The most common complaint, he says, is that virtual experiences can’t replicate the intimacy of in-person. His response? If people can have sex online, they can engage with each other online to learn.

“It’s been an amazing opportunity to be able to stir a culture from the inside,” says Ibáñez-Carrasco. “Faculty members are embracing a new way of doing things, but the main change has been grappling [with unexpected realities.] From technical issues to worrying about privacy issues around lectures ... faculty members – no matter how established – feel very vulnerable.”

However, Ibáñez-Carrasco maintains that a little uncertainty can be a good thing – an observation supported by his own personal experience. He was a 22-year old high school teacher when he fled the fascistic dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1985, landing in Vancouver where he was soon handed an HIV diagnosis – a death sentence at the time.

“The physician said, ‘Well pal, you’re HIV-positive – another immigrant coming here to die of AIDS. Here’s your list of opportunistic illnesses. One of them will kill you.’”

The diagnosis was terrible, but Ibáñez-Carrasco says it freed him to think fearlessly about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He’d always loved studying, teaching and books, so eventually Ibáñez-Carrasco went back to school, earning a PhD in education from Simon Fraser University. And he wrote books.

His diagnosis also kicked off a lifelong interest in public health. Straddling the worlds of education and advocating for the sexual health of marginalized communities, his work still aims to bridge the communication gap between provider and patient.

Ibáñez-Carrasco has lived in Toronto since 2012, when he became director of education and training at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network. There, he trained 70 emerging Canadian HIV researchers and community leaders from 2009 to 2017, earning a Red Ribbon award from the Canadian Association for HIV Research in 2017. He then served as a senior research associate at the Centre for Urban Solutions at Unity Health. Days after learning U of T would pivot to online instruction in the face of COVID-19, Professor Dionne Gesink, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s associate dean of academic affairs, asked Ibáñez-Carrasco to join the school at the recommendation of Professor Carol Strike, who knew about his longtime leadership in online education.

“Francisco has been a ray of sunshine piercing through the storm clouds,” says Gesink, herself a sexual health researcher. “He has supported faculty and student learning, remote delivery, gamifying learning activities, alternative methods of evaluating student learning. He has coached faculty in pedagogy, and the list goes on.

“Francisco is warm and approachable, makes people feel comfortable and confident, somehow makes work playful and really helps foster a sense of community.”

Although not a traditional expert in technology, Ibáñez-Carrasco is passionate about teaching and engaging people despite barriers – whether they be technological, cultural or psychological.

He says he finds sudden change invigorating, loving the “messiness” and the freedom to create something new. That applies not just to online teaching but also the current upheaval around traditional gender and sexual identities and anti-oppressive teaching practices, he says.

“I love the complexity of queer communities. Emerging communities of transgender, nonbinary folks have something to teach me. Understanding diversity was something we preached in the 80s and 90s. And now they’re in my face – good!”

His fondness for mess is rooted in childhood. Ibáñez-Carrasco was 10 when Pinochet seized power, and he remembers the fascist oppression to conform or die that descended on Chilean society.

“You had to toe the line. Everything was redacted: television, textbooks and your conversations had to be edited as such,” he recalls. “There were curfews for many years. People whispered for two reasons: when someone had cancer and when someone was involved in politics.”

Informed by that history, he has fought stigma and secrecy of all things that bring shame, including sexualities, medical conditions such as HIV and the use of drugs. “Patients understand everything if they are given the right opportunity – including patients we see as complex,” he says. “They understand very well because many are living multiple pandemics – HIV, the opioid crisis and COVID.”

Looking forward, Ibáñez-Carrasco sees huge opportunity for the field of public health – providing practitioners are willing to embrace the upheaval.

“For public health schools, it’s a golden opportunity on a silver platter,” he says. “You can re-imagine everything. In fact, we must reimagine everything: learning, research, clinical practice and policy-making. All of it has been thrown into a blender. What a magnificent opportunity.”

Art in the time of COVID-19: Finding ways to 'render the invisible visible'

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 04 May 2020 16:44:05 +0000

Art in the time of COVID-19: Finding ways to 'render the invisible visible'

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 05/04/2020 - 12:44

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John Paul Ricco, a professor at U of T Mississauga's department of visual studies, says COVID-19 has led 'a whole new awareness of ourselves in the world, and with others' (photo courtesy of John Ricco)

Topic

With much of the world locked down due to COVID-19, art and creativity has burst into living spaces through platforms like Zoom, livestreams and over social media – a development that does not surprise the University of Toronto’s John Paul Ricco, who says social upheavals and health crises has historically inspired artists.

“I do think this speaks generally to the value of art in all of its various forms, and that it is probably our principal and most developed way of being attuned to the world,” says Ricco, a professor in the department of visual studies at U of T Mississauga.

“It is a way to try to register, record and re-shape our perceptions and to really take stock. But also, I think art plays an incredibly important role in a moment when people are looking around and are really interested in art and humanities – and writing again – because when the world feels like it's imploding, art and aesthetics are there to save you.”

Ricco, who has been on faculty at U of T Mississauga since 2006, is an art historian and queer theorist whose research closely examines the relationship between art and ethics.

Ricco’s 2014 book The Decision Between Us: Art and Ethics in the Time of Scenes argues that scenes of intimacy are spaces of sharing, but that they are also spaces of separation, which has a particular resonance in the current climate.

He says the present situation is a time to ask how we can find ways of connecting while in solitude – space that allows the social to happen, but also the capacity for people to figure out how to deal with being physically separated from others.

Read John Paul Ricco’s contribution in Tilting, a publication by the Blackwood Gallery at U of T Mississauga

Ricco points to past health crises that have led to exploring similar concepts in art, particularly the AIDS outbreak when he was an undergraduate student at New York University. That health epidemic in the 1990s influenced his path throughout his graduate studies and he became involved in AIDS activism, exploring ways in which contemporary artists were contending with the situation.

For example, Ricco curated a contemporary art exhibition in Chicago in 1996 titled Disappeared that brought together artists contemplating the question of representation in relationship to AIDS. There was the “disappearance” of the people who died from the disease, as well as the loss of aesthetics that resulted from not being able to fully represent AIDS in a visual form.

He also points to a past exhibit by artist Félix González-Torres that challenged the prohibitions on physical contact to avoid the spread of the disease.

When it comes to the current COVID-19 crisis, there is once again a warning to avoid physical proximity and it is also difficult to put a shape to the invisible virus. However, Ricco feels this is part of the challenge for visual artists: rendering the invisible visible.

He suggests we are all taking part in the process by our inadvertent choreography of physical distancing in our homes and out on errands or on walks.

“I think one of the most interesting things that art can help us contend with is exactly those things that cannot be seen and what we do with that difficulty or that problem,” says Ricco.

“We can imagine art being made in the midst and in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis that takes up this prohibition of physical proximity – touching and contact – and uses that as the way to explore what it means to be in physical proximity, to have contact and how art can be a kind of stage that enables people to engage with that. I think one of the things that has happened in the midst of this is that there is a whole new awareness of ourselves in the world and with others.”

Listen to an interview with John Paul Ricco on the View to the U podcast

New book by U of T author looks at the corporate philanthropy of MˑAˑC Cosmetics and how it was done right

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 13:56:37 +0000

New book by U of T author looks at the corporate philanthropy of MˑAˑC Cosmetics and how it was done right

noreen.rasbach Fri, 08/09/2019 - 09:56

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"Generally, I've been interested in the commodification of social causes, mostly because I find it objectionable," says Andrea Benoit, academic review officer in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

HIV

LGBTQ

A new book from University of Toronto Press uncovers the origins of MˑAˑC Cosmetics’ corporate philanthropy around HIV/AIDS awareness and fundraising in the early 1990s.

Viva MˑAˑC: AIDS, Fashion, and the Philanthropic Practices of MˑAˑC Cosmetics traces the history of the MˑAˑC AIDS Fund, a charity established in 1994 to support people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide.

The book is written by Andrea Benoit, academic review officer in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science and adjunct assistant professor of media studies in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University. Benoit received her bachelor's and master's degrees from U of T in English before completing her PhD in media studies at Western.

Jovana Jankovic spoke with Benoit about MˑAˑC’s corporate philanthropy, why it was unique and the historical conditions out of which it emerged.

MˑAˑC has always catered to a wider variety of customers – such as the LGBTQ community and people of colour – than other brands. How do you think this is related to the brand’s genesis in Toronto, such a diverse city?

MˑAˑC started its philanthropy in the early 1990s within a sort of perfect storm. The founders and its employees wanted to help their friends and the people around them as the AIDS epidemic was unfolding in Toronto. There was some activism already in place, along with a slightly more progressive political moment.

At the same time, we had the revitalization of the creative industries in the 1980s – in music and in the fashion scene. Toronto really felt like it might be a fashion capital, along the same lines as New York, and everybody was excited about it. There was lots of expansive thinking in that time. Creative people weren’t necessarily concerned with making a lot of money, although certainly one has to make a livelihood.

You write in your book that taking a stand like MˑAˑC did to spotlight AIDS was “defiant.” What do you think it takes for brands to take such a risk?

Well, “cause marketing” is, first of all, marketing. So, for cause marketing to be successful, it has to benefit the company. As a result, a lot of corporations probably aren't interested in being too risky. And, of course, the consumer base and the cause have to overlap in order for it to work.

There’s a tendency to play it safe – unless you’re a big company, in which case we see something like Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty.” There was a certain amount of risk in that but, at the same time, that brand was so stale that they could take that chance. And they touched a social nerve – and did it in a really interesting and imaginative way that changed that conversation.

However, what MˑAˑC did had nothing to do with marketing. They weren’t interested in that kind of promotional activity. They just did what they felt was right, and they did it according to their own logic, their own sets of practices. They didn't really care what people thought.

There's no question that the brand and the AIDS advocacy have become mutually beneficial since then, and they would say there's nothing wrong with that. But they have maintained their position that the MˑAˑC AIDS Fund is not a promotional activity writ large, and they still don't really advertise it all that much.

How did you get interested in corporate philanthropy as a research area? And could you talk to us about some contemporary examples?

Generally, I've been interested in the commodification of social causes, mostly because I find it objectionable. The intersection of social justice with consumer culture is pretty disingenuous, especially since capitalism itself is founded so clearly on social inequity and exploitation.

But corporations rely on consumers thinking that they’re doing good things. So as an intellectual inquiry, I wanted to try to understand these things better. When I started to explore this topic, I couldn't find anything good to say about it – which can be distressing and discouraging, to think that everything's terrible. But when I started to investigate MˑAˑC, I realized that something very different was happening. Their story didn't follow along the same patterns I was seeing with other corporations. So that was the basis of this project.

Gillette, for instance, is actually doing something pretty controversial and risking a pretty solid consumer base by talking about issues like “toxic masculinity” that are uncomfortable for people. They’re trying to change this conversation in a substantial way.

Whether it will be successful or not remains to be seen. That’s why advertising history is so interesting, because you can’t always assess the impact in the moment.

Pride month just took place and here in Toronto we have one of the biggest Pride celebrations in the world. What does Pride mean to you and how do you celebrate?

I've always considered myself an ally. And I'm thrilled that my book came out during Pride month at the Glad Day Bookshop, the oldest independent LGBTQ bookstore in Toronto.

It's interesting to see how Pride has become so all-encompassing. I used to live in the [Church-Wellesley] village, and Pride really did start as something very small and very determined. I think it’s important for younger people to understand the history of Pride – it's not just a month of partying. It comes from a long history of people living and working and dying to achieve equality and safety in their lives and on the streets. That gets missed when you go to the mall and every store has rainbows and Pride t-shirts.

So, I'm hopeful that my book offers a little bit of information about people who were trying to do something at a time when it was risky, when their friends were dying, when people were very antagonistic and aggressively against advocacy for LGBTQ folks and terrified of AIDS. I'm glad that my book might help people understand that history a little bit. History is important.

U of T researcher looks for ways to protect the brain from HIV-related damage

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 15:37:00 +0000

U of T researcher looks for ways to protect the brain from HIV-related damage

noreen.rasbach Wed, 11/28/2018 - 10:37

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Declines in cognitive function are "a serious complication of HIV," says Professor Reina Bendayan (photo by Steve Southan)

Topic

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

During Professor Reina Bendayan’s career, she has seen HIV/AIDS evolve from a universally fatal infection to a highly manageable chronic disease. Her research into HIV’s effects on the brain is addressing an important, yet poorly understood complication of the disease.

When she began her career at the University of Toronto in the late 1980s, HIV/AIDS was a major public health crisis. With her expertise in drug transport and distribution, she began to study how new HIV drugs cross biological membranes to get access to tissues and treat the infection. She was especially interested in the brain.

“When I started, HIV-associated dementia was recognized as a very common complication of the illness,” says Bendayan, a professor in the department of pharmaceutical sciences at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. “People were dying from it.”

Antiretroviral therapies, developed in the 1990s, transformed care and life expectancy for people with HIV. “Most patients with HIV present undetectable viral loads in their blood, but they aren’t cured,” she says. In fact, because many of these drugs do not cross the blood-brain barrier, the virus can remain almost untouched in the brain.

While HIV-associated dementia is no longer a major cause of death, as many as 50 per cent of people with HIV still experience declines in cognitive function that impact their quality of life. “As people live much longer, it’s a serious complication of HIV,” Bendayan says.

In recent years, Bendayan and her team have been exploring how the virus causes inflammation in the brain, which, over time, damages neurons and causes complications known as HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), which can include memory loss and poor co-ordination.

Using rodent models of the disease, she and her team identified that a transcription factor called PPAR helps to block inflammation in the brain. They are now testing whether drugs that activate PPAR can counteract the damaging effects of HIV in the brain, reduce inflammation and perhaps even target the virus directly. One of the drugs they are testing, rosiglitazone, is also used to treat Type 2 diabetes, which may allow it to be translated relatively quickly into patient care.

Bendayan says that the goal is to have a drug that is safe for long-term use and that can penetrate the brain effectively to treat both the virus and associated inflammation.

Understanding how HIV affects the brain is critical for the aging population of people with HIV/AIDS in North America and for those in developing countries where the virus is still a health crisis. “In Sub-Saharan Africa and India it is still an acute problem, and we’re seeing a rise of infection in several countries, including Russia,” says Bendayan. “In North America, HIV infection is very well controlled, but globally it remains a major problem.”

U of T researcher co-authors landmark report: calls Canadian newspaper coverage of HIV criminalization cases racist

ullahnor — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 18:22:01 +0000

U of T researcher co-authors landmark report: calls Canadian newspaper coverage of HIV criminalization cases racist

ullahnor Thu, 12/01/2016 - 13:22

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Laura Bisaillon: "This coverage has negative effects on public opinion because it not only stigmatizes people living with HIV, it stereotypes black immigrant men living with HIV in particular” (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

Black heterosexual immigrant men are disproportionately highlighted by Canadian mainstream newspapers covering HIV non-disclosure criminal cases, says a new report co-authored by a University of Toronto researcher.

While black immigrant men only accounted for 15 per cent of defendants in these cases, they were the focus of 61 per cent of newspaper coverage, researchers found.

“We were surprised by the massive imbalance in coverage that focused on black immigrant men,” says Laura Bisaillon, an assistant professor in U of T Scarborough’s health studies program and one of five authors of the report.

“This coverage has negative effects on public opinion because it not only stigmatizes people living with HIV, it stereotypes black immigrant men living with HIV in particular.”

The report, “Callous, Cold and Deliberately Duplicitous,” is the first of its kind. Researchers analyzed 1,680 articles published in Canadian newspapers from 1989 to 2015. The articles focused on cases involving defendants facing criminal charges for not disclosing their HIV status before having sex.

One of the key findings in the report is that 68 per cent of newspaper articles focused on racialized defendants – with African, Caribbean and black men disproportionately represented in coverage.

“Our evidence shows that most people who face criminal charges in these cases are actually white, yet newspaper coverage focused mainly on black male defendants,” says Bisaillon.

Read the Toronto Star story on the report

The authors also discovered a cluster of coverage by Canadian newspapers on four specific men who faced HIV non-disclosure cases. Nearly half of all coverage focused specifically on the cases of these men, all of whom are black immigrants.

The report’s authors were also critical of the language used in the newspaper coverage, which they believe contributes to inflaming stereotypical and xenophobic ideas, particularly relating to black immigrant men with HIV.

“It’s upsetting to read myths masquerading as news and repeating the theme of how black men living with HIV are hypersexual, dangerous ‘others,’” says Erik Mykhalovskiy, a professor of sociology at York University and the study’s lead author.

The authors call for reform in media coverage, including having cases of HIV criminalization covered by health rather than crime reporters. They also insist that coverage about HIV-transmission use current scientific research, specifically about the negligible risk of transmitting HIV where the person has an undetectable viral load.

The authors took aim at the use of mug shots in stories and called for removing story descriptions that are “inherently racist or demonize the defendant.” They also urge media to rely on AIDS service organizations for their knowledge and insight in stories about HIV criminalization.

“Misinformation about HIV transmission contributes to fear and hostility towards people living with HIV,” says Bisaillon, whose research looks at the organization and production of knowledge about the Canadian immigration system. “I hope that these results will be used for transformative purposes to spark open and honest discussion about how the Canadian public is learning about cases of HIV criminalization.”

Public health researchers at U of T launch first Canadian study on couples with different HIV statuses

ullahnor — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 18:30:15 +0000

Public health researchers at U of T launch first Canadian study on couples with different HIV statuses

ullahnor Wed, 11/30/2016 - 13:30

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Red ribbon for World AIDS Day (photo by Trinn Suwannapha/World Bank via Flickr)

Nicole Bodnar

Author legacy

Nicole Bodnar

Topic

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

International

Tomorrow is World AIDS Day, and this year’s theme is Disclosure: HIV/AIDS in the 21st Century.

This theme is particularly relevant for Thom and Vajdon (pictured left), who have been together for 17 years and are in what scientists call a serodiscordant relationship – where one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative.

“There are a lot of us out here, living full and loving lives. Sticking by each other no matter what,” said Thom (on the left side of the photo), a writer, actor and educator who is HIV-positive and lives in Toronto with his partner Vajdon (on the right side of the photo), who is a PhD student.

This summer, U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health launched Positive Plus One, the first Canadian study about HIV-serodiscordant relationships. These relationships are increasingly common, since people with HIV are living longer lives and have more opportunity for longer relationships.

Thom will be featured with Liviana Calzavara, a professor at Dalla Lana, who launched Positive Plus One, tomorrow on CTV's "Your Morning" for World AIDS Day and then at 5:15 p.m. on CBC Radio's "Here & Now."

Positive Plus One brings together a diverse team of community members, AIDS service organizations and clinicians. Researchers say they hope the results will inform health-care professionals, service providers, policy-makers and those living in HIV-serodiscordant relationships about how to improve knowledge and services for HIV-positive people and their HIV-negative partners.

According to the Ontario HIV Treatment Network Cohort Study, 23 per cent of HIV-positive people reported an HIV-negative regular partner. People in HIV-serodiscordant relationships face many unique challenges, including stigma and the risk of transmission between partners, but scientists, policy-makers and service providers know relatively little about how these factors affect people.

For the study to be successful, researchers say, they must hear the voices of both partners to get the perspectives of both HIV-positive and HIV-negative persons. They're looking for couples from different backgrounds – of all genders, ethnicities, sexual identities and regions of the country.

Thom and Vajdon say they hope the study will help to reduce stigma through awareness and education.

“While the consequences of stigma are better known for positive people, their negative partners are deeply affected, too,” said Vajdon. “It’s important to highlight the experiences of negative partners, and ensure that HIV support programs and policies take their needs into account.”

Calzavara (pictured right) is an HIV/AIDS research pioneer. She oversaw the Toronto Sexual Contact Study, the first cohort study to examine the natural history of HIV infection and the role of sexual risk behaviours. She also co-developed and co-taught the first HIV/AIDS course offered at U of T.

Together with a number of HIV/AIDS researchers at Dalla Lana including Professor Emeritus Ted Myers and Assistant Professor Dan Allman, Calzavara has led significant international research into the behavioural determinants of HIV transmission among men who have sex with men.

World AIDS Day: researchers launch free resource to improve patients' quality of life

sgupta — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 06:48:59 +0000

World AIDS Day: researchers launch free resource to improve patients' quality of life sgupta Tue, 12/01/2015 - 01:48

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University College at U of T's downtown Toronto campus is lit up each year for World AIDS Day (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Heidi Singer

Author legacy

Heidi Singer

Topic

Global Lens

Read a Toronto Star article by Nixon

“Many people living longer with HIV are thinking about their future hopes and dreams,” Nixon says. “Rehabilitation can help people with the goals that matter to them.”

HIV can cause disease in every part of the body. Because it targets the immune system, infections and other diseases are a constant threat. Techniques such as chest physiotherapy, for example, help people with lung infections breathe effectively. The neurological system is a target for HIV damage, leading to strokes, spinal cord infections and nerve damage in legs. These problems require rehabilitation to help people walk, swallow, live independently, and support themselves and their families.

The medications that allow people to live with HIV can cause problems to the heart, lungs and liver. People living long-term on HIV treatments can also experience bone death in their hips and knees. Rehabilitation helps people address the impact of these conditions on their daily lives. For example, physiotherapists help to manage pain and increase function and mobility. Occupational therapists devise “workarounds” and other ways for people achieve their goals. And speech therapists help people learn to swallow and talk after brain injury. Rehabilitation also addresses the profound stigma related to both HIV and to disability.

Read about World AIDS Day at Hart House

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sites/default/files/2015-12-01-UC-AIDS-Day.jpg

Elton John AIDS Foundation supports U of T human rights program

sgupta — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 10:49:31 +0000

Elton John AIDS Foundation supports U of T human rights program sgupta Wed, 01/07/2015 - 05:49

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David Furnish, chair of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, with Sir Elton John (photo by Greg Gorman)

Lucianna Ciccocioppo

Author legacy

Lucianna Ciccocioppo

With HIV rates at a 20-year high, AIDS researchers discuss next steps

sgupta — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 08:48:47 +0000

With HIV rates at a 20-year high, AIDS researchers discuss next steps sgupta Mon, 09/15/2014 - 04:48

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Sign welcoming delegates to the conference in Melbourne (photo by Scott Cresswell via Flickr)

Michael Kennedy

Author legacy

Michael Kennedy

Subheadline

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work professors share expertise

The scientists and activists who lead the world’s efforts to defeat one of the great medical scourges of our time met recently in Melbourne – among them three professors from the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.

When the 20th International AIDS conference began, the deaths of delegates aboard a Malaysian plane destroyed over Ukraine dominated the headlines. But even as scholars, politicians and community leaders mourned the loss of those colleagues, researchers shared their findings − and media took up the task of reporting on important trends and discoveries.

U of T’s Carmen Logie presented research that focused on the devastating HIV infection rate among women particularly those who face varying types of marginalization and abuse.

“I feel the global focus on women and AIDS mainly looks at maternal health and perinatal transmission, which of course is extremely important,” says Professor Logie (pictured at left).

“But other groups like sex workers, transgender women and sexual minority women often face social and structural risk factors and discrimination that are overlooked.”

Logie discussed the plight of internally-displaced women in Leogane, Haiti and their experience with intimate partner violence. (Internally-displaced persons are those who have fled their homes, often due to natural disasters or political upheaval, yet, unlike refugees, remain within their own country.)

She selected Haiti because of its soaring HIV infection rate – the highest in the Western hemisphere.

Logie's research concluded that poverty reduction was key to empowering displaced women in Leogane, and community mobilization also provided them with tools they needed to promote safety and well-being. (Read more about Logie’s work in Haiti.)

Professor Peter A. Newman delivered several presentations and took part in a meeting as a member of the international psychosocial studies group of the “Towards an HIV Cure” initiative.

“It is crucial to engage the perspectives of community stakeholders, including key populations at risk for HIV and people living with HIV, to address thorny social and ethical challenges of HIV cure research,” says Newman, who is a Canada Research Chair in Health and Social Justice.

That includes addressing concerns that research into a cure for HIV might take resources away from prevention, Newman says, and “exploring the tremendous social and behavioural implications of an HIV cure” such as who will have access.

For Professor David Brennan, the conference offered a chance to discuss his research that focuses on the role of masculinity in the relationships of gay and bisexual men of colour.

Sexual roles tend to be perceived in relation to gender norms with the more effeminate men being assumed to be the receptive partner, Brennan says. Brennan wanted to know whether men associate masculinity with being the insertive partner and whether that mindset affects their use of protection.

“We found that insertive partners who associate their roles with their masculinity were less likely to report using condoms,” says Brennan. “But what was more interesting was that perceptions based on gender roles often do not line up with reality and therefore assumptions about sexual behaviour and sexual risk are not always accurate.”

Michael Kennedy writes about health and wellness for U of T News.

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AIDS

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