Report puts spotlight on needs of women affected by HIV

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Terrence Higgins Trust and Sophia forum recently launched  ‘Women and HIV: Invisible No Longer’, a report to bring attention to the needs of women living with or affected by HIV. It was co-produced with women living with and affected by HIV.

The report was developed using existing evidence and new data generated with over 340 women through surveys and workshops.

It focuses on all women, including trans women, regardless of sexuality, ethnicity, whether they do or do not have children, or are pregnant or not.

Key Findings

Some of the key findings include the following:

  • Almost half (45%) of women living with HIV in the UK live below the poverty line.
  • Over half of women living with HIV in the UK have experienced violence because of their HIV status.
  • Nearly one third (31%) have avoided or delayed attending healthcare in the past year due to fear of discrimination.
  • Two thirds of women living with HIV (67%) are not satisfied with their sex lives.
  • Two in five women living with HIV (42%) said that HIV impacted their decisions on whether to have children.
  • Despite this, half of women living with HIV (49%) described their quality of life as ‘good’ or ‘very good’, while a further 38% called it ‘acceptable’.
  • On HIV prevention, little effort has been made to define who the women at risk of HIV are.
  • Nearly half the respondents (42%) felt that barriers prevent them from testing for HIV.

Read the full report (PDF) or the executive summary (PDF).

Five key asks

The report details a number of recommendations but the writers of the report have five key asks that summarise the changes needed to ensure that women’s needs are met  appropriately in HIV prevention, care, support, research and data in the UK.

  1. Achieve gender parity in the UK HIV response, ensuring equitable investment, priority and attention to women in HIV prevention, research, data and services.
  2. Ensure that HIV research addresses specific knowledge gaps around HIV and women and supports the full participation and meaningful involvement of women.
  3. Prioritise reducing late diagnosis of HIV among women, better explore the use of innovative HIV testing approaches, and improve rates of HIV test offers and uptake in different settings.
  4. Improve data collection and disaggregation on HIV and women, ensure local level data is available, and include sexuality data for women in national reporting.
  5. Invest in HIV support services that meet women’s needs holistically and enable women to not just live well but to thrive, including peer support and support for mental health and gender-based violence.

Social Media Pack – I Can’t Pass On HIV

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We’ve created a social media pack to help you promote the spring campaign from HIV Prevention England.

The campaign will launch on Monday 16 April so we urge you not to start using the resources provided until then please.

Theme

The campaign will raise awareness that people living with HIV who are on treatment and have an undetectable viral load cannot pass on the virus to someone else sexually, even if condoms are not used during sex.

The tagline for the campaign is ‘I can’t pass on HIV’. All of the people featured in the campaign images and videos are living with HIV.

For more information on the campaign please see our campaign briefing [PDF].

What’s in the pack?

Images: A selection of images for use on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media platform.

Suggested posts: Examples of posts for Facebook and Twitter.

Download pack (excluding videos)

Videos: We have four videos available to download separately.

Treatment infographic video – A short animated infographic video explaining the importance of treatment.

Tom’s Story – Tom has been living with HIV for over five years and explains how treatment has changed his life.

Mercy’s Story – Mercy talks about being undetectable and being able to have children while living with HIV.

George’s Story – George speaks about being undetectable and how that has changed his life for the better.

What are we asking people to do?

There are three things that we are encouraging people to do during thing campaign.

Spread the word: People can share information on the campaign messages.

Get tested: Find out if they need to get tested for HIV, where to get tested and the different ways of getting tested by using the tools on our website

Take medication: For people already diagnosed with HIV we are encouraging them to access treatment. This benefits their own health and has the added advantage of not having to worry about passing HIV on to anyone else.

‘I can’t pass on HIV’ – It Starts With Me Spring 2018 Campaign

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The spring phase of the It Starts With Me campaign will start on Monday 16 April 2018.

The focus of this phase will be on promoting the impact of HIV medication on prevention.

The campaign aims to:

  • promote awareness and confidence in the message that effective HIV treatment stops the transmission of the virus, based on the evidence supporting this.
  • challenge HIV stigma by sharing real stories of people living with HIV who demonstrate how effective treatment is and that they are not passing on the virus.
  • encourage people living with HIV to continue to take treatment, both for the health benefits it produces and to stop them from being able to pass on HIV.

The campaign will be delivered mainly via online and print advertising.

Campaign briefing

If you would like to know more about this phase of the campaign please have a look at our Spring Campaign Briefing [PDF].

The briefing will provide you with

  • a summary of key definitions.
  • the evidence which demonstrates the effectiveness of HIV treatment on reducing transmission.
  • information on how you can get involved.

Social media pack

We’ve created a social media pack to help you promote the spring campaign from HIV Prevention England.

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