Introduction This report is the second from the Living with HIV program that specifically address... more Introduction This report is the second from the Living with HIV program that specifically addresses the status of women with HIV/AIDS in Australia. The report comes, as did its predecessor Standing on shifting sand, from a national survey of Australian PLWHA. The HIV Futures II survey is a core component of a broader program of research concerned with the social and psychological experience of living with HIV.
A generation ago, infectious diseases were seen as a medical backwater, with the eradication of s... more A generation ago, infectious diseases were seen as a medical backwater, with the eradication of smallpox and widespread vaccination against polio However, the emergence of AIDS in the early 1980s, followed by SARS in 2003, pandemic influenza in 2009 and Ebola on an unprecedented scale in 2013-14 showed that infectious diseases of zoonotic origin could cause major new pandemics Covid-19 has shown that very old public health techniques of quarantine and isolation are still needed to respond to new outbreaks Public health always tries to get ahead of an emerging epidemic but rarely succeeds
A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmiss... more A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmission and how to prevent it, yet every day, around the world, nearly 7000 people become infected with the virus. Although HIV prevention is complex, it ought not to be mystifying. Local and national achievements in curbing the epidemic have been myriad, and have created a body of evidence about what works, but these successful approaches have not yet been fully applied. Essential programmes and services have not had sufficient coverage; they have often lacked the funding to be applied with sufficient quality and intensity. Action and funding have not necessarily been directed to where the epidemic is or to what drives it. Few programmes address vulnerability to HIV and structural determinants of the epidemic. A prevention constituency has not been adequately mobilised to stimulate the demand for HIV prevention. Confident and unified leadership has not emerged to assert what is needed in HI...
A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmiss... more A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmission and how to prevent it, yet every day, around the world, nearly 7000 people become infected with the virus. Although HIV prevention is complex, it ought not to be mystifying. Local and national achievements in curbing the epidemic have been myriad, and have created a body of evidence about what works, but these successful approaches have not yet been fully applied. Essential programmes and services have not had suffi cient coverage; they have often lacked the funding to be applied with suffi cient quality and intensity. Action and funding have not necessarily been directed to where the epidemic is or to what drives it. Few programmes address vulnerability to HIV and structural determinants of the epidemic. A prevention constituency has not been adequately mobilised to stimulate the demand for HIV prevention. Confi dent and unifi ed leadership has not emerged to assert what is needed i...
The development of performance indicators for Australian schools and higher education is predicat... more The development of performance indicators for Australian schools and higher education is predicated on the false as-sertion that policy makers have hitherto ignored education outcomes. Performance indicators for higher education orig-inated in the government’s 1985 Guidelines to the Tertiary Education Commission. The Australian experiences with per-formance indicators in higher education has been similar to the British and European experience. Performance indicators for schools have their origins in the 1985 Quality of Education Review. National development of performance measures has been remarkably diffident about their prospects. This equivocation about performance measures has parallels with what some have seen as a deeper crisis in the human sciences. Philosopher Jean-François Lyotard suggests that per-vasive in modern society is ’performativity’, which is the reduction of all judgement to the criterion of efficiency of in-put-output relations. ’Performativity ’ is eleva...
The article discusses the views of two participants in the study of recent sero-converters being ... more The article discusses the views of two participants in the study of recent sero-converters being conducted by the National Centres in HIV Social Research and Epidemiology. The main features of the Australian HIV policy are highlighted.
National Centre in HIV Social Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1998
1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/A... more 1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS to have been surveyed in Australia. The survey was conducted from 1 July 1997 to 5 September 1997. The 925 respondents represents over eight percent of the current population of PLWHA in Australia. While a substantial number of the participants are gay men living in Sydney, the survey includes significant numbers of PLWHA from smaller sub-populations such as women, and people living outside NSW and Victoria. The survey ...
Abstract" The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS t... more Abstract" The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS to have been surveyed in Australia. The survey was conducted from 1 July 1997 to 5 September 1997. The 925 respondents represents over eight percent of the current population of PLWHA in Australia. While a substantial number of the participants are gay men living in Sydney, the survey includes significant numbers of PLWHA from smaller sub-populations such as women, and people living outside NSW and Victoria. The survey has ...
National Centre in HIV Social Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1998
1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/A... more 1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS to have been surveyed in Australia. The survey was conducted from 1 July 1997 to 5 September 1997. The 925 respondents represents over eight percent of the current population of PLWHA in Australia. While a substantial number of the participants are gay men living in Sydney, the survey includes significant numbers of PLWHA from smaller sub-populations such as women, and people living outside NSW and Victoria.
Reeling from a devastating bushfire season, Australia was slow to respond to the Covid-19 threat,... more Reeling from a devastating bushfire season, Australia was slow to respond to the Covid-19 threat, but when modelling in mid-March showed the same pattern of growth that had overwhelmed European health systems, a closely knit network of public health experts gained the ear of government and rapid national action was taken closing workplaces and imposing stay at home orders With investments in localized testing, contact tracing and sequencing to track the genomic fingerprint of cases, by the end of April new cases had been brought to near zero Australia's successful containment efforts have paralleled those of regional neighbours such as China, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan, in stark contrast to the uncontained spread in the United States, Australia's traditional ally The Australian government has tried to navigate these geopolitical tensions by moderating the Trump administration's attempts to turn the pandemic into a political battlefield Renewed outbreaks in Australia ...
This paper examines factors associated with feeling suicidal in a large sample of urban men in Sy... more This paper examines factors associated with feeling suicidal in a large sample of urban men in Sydney and Melbourne, aged 18-50, including heterosexual, gay and bisexual men, HI V antibody positive and HIV antibody negative. As in previous research, sexuality (being homosexual or bisexual) was found to be a major predictor of suicidality. The research went some way towards explaining the close relationship between feeling suicided and sexual orientation. Sexuality interacts with feeling bad in that, once men feel moderately bad/depressed, they are more likely to feel suicidal if they are homosexual or bisexual than if they are heterosexual. In addition, the research found that experience of verbal abuse and physical assault (harassment) increased feeling suicidal for both heterosexual and gay/bi- sexual men, not just for homosexual men as suggested by previous research, and that social isolation in the form of living alone is a further risk factor. Seeking counseling help and taking sexual risks were also independently associated with feeling suicidal. These actions may result from feeling suicidal rather than the reverse, and their association with feeling suicidal warrants further research. Many of the 46 independent variables examined in the research, including HIV antibody status and closeness to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, were related to feeling suicidal only through their association with being gay/bisexual. Celibacy and general risk taking were not related to feeling suicidal in this study.
Introduction This report is the second from the Living with HIV program that specifically address... more Introduction This report is the second from the Living with HIV program that specifically addresses the status of women with HIV/AIDS in Australia. The report comes, as did its predecessor Standing on shifting sand, from a national survey of Australian PLWHA. The HIV Futures II survey is a core component of a broader program of research concerned with the social and psychological experience of living with HIV.
A generation ago, infectious diseases were seen as a medical backwater, with the eradication of s... more A generation ago, infectious diseases were seen as a medical backwater, with the eradication of smallpox and widespread vaccination against polio However, the emergence of AIDS in the early 1980s, followed by SARS in 2003, pandemic influenza in 2009 and Ebola on an unprecedented scale in 2013-14 showed that infectious diseases of zoonotic origin could cause major new pandemics Covid-19 has shown that very old public health techniques of quarantine and isolation are still needed to respond to new outbreaks Public health always tries to get ahead of an emerging epidemic but rarely succeeds
A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmiss... more A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmission and how to prevent it, yet every day, around the world, nearly 7000 people become infected with the virus. Although HIV prevention is complex, it ought not to be mystifying. Local and national achievements in curbing the epidemic have been myriad, and have created a body of evidence about what works, but these successful approaches have not yet been fully applied. Essential programmes and services have not had sufficient coverage; they have often lacked the funding to be applied with sufficient quality and intensity. Action and funding have not necessarily been directed to where the epidemic is or to what drives it. Few programmes address vulnerability to HIV and structural determinants of the epidemic. A prevention constituency has not been adequately mobilised to stimulate the demand for HIV prevention. Confident and unified leadership has not emerged to assert what is needed in HI...
A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmiss... more A quarter of a century of AIDS responses has created a huge body of knowledge about HIV transmission and how to prevent it, yet every day, around the world, nearly 7000 people become infected with the virus. Although HIV prevention is complex, it ought not to be mystifying. Local and national achievements in curbing the epidemic have been myriad, and have created a body of evidence about what works, but these successful approaches have not yet been fully applied. Essential programmes and services have not had suffi cient coverage; they have often lacked the funding to be applied with suffi cient quality and intensity. Action and funding have not necessarily been directed to where the epidemic is or to what drives it. Few programmes address vulnerability to HIV and structural determinants of the epidemic. A prevention constituency has not been adequately mobilised to stimulate the demand for HIV prevention. Confi dent and unifi ed leadership has not emerged to assert what is needed i...
The development of performance indicators for Australian schools and higher education is predicat... more The development of performance indicators for Australian schools and higher education is predicated on the false as-sertion that policy makers have hitherto ignored education outcomes. Performance indicators for higher education orig-inated in the government’s 1985 Guidelines to the Tertiary Education Commission. The Australian experiences with per-formance indicators in higher education has been similar to the British and European experience. Performance indicators for schools have their origins in the 1985 Quality of Education Review. National development of performance measures has been remarkably diffident about their prospects. This equivocation about performance measures has parallels with what some have seen as a deeper crisis in the human sciences. Philosopher Jean-François Lyotard suggests that per-vasive in modern society is ’performativity’, which is the reduction of all judgement to the criterion of efficiency of in-put-output relations. ’Performativity ’ is eleva...
The article discusses the views of two participants in the study of recent sero-converters being ... more The article discusses the views of two participants in the study of recent sero-converters being conducted by the National Centres in HIV Social Research and Epidemiology. The main features of the Australian HIV policy are highlighted.
National Centre in HIV Social Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1998
1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/A... more 1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS to have been surveyed in Australia. The survey was conducted from 1 July 1997 to 5 September 1997. The 925 respondents represents over eight percent of the current population of PLWHA in Australia. While a substantial number of the participants are gay men living in Sydney, the survey includes significant numbers of PLWHA from smaller sub-populations such as women, and people living outside NSW and Victoria. The survey ...
Abstract" The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS t... more Abstract" The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS to have been surveyed in Australia. The survey was conducted from 1 July 1997 to 5 September 1997. The 925 respondents represents over eight percent of the current population of PLWHA in Australia. While a substantial number of the participants are gay men living in Sydney, the survey includes significant numbers of PLWHA from smaller sub-populations such as women, and people living outside NSW and Victoria. The survey has ...
National Centre in HIV Social Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1998
1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/A... more 1 Executive Summary The HIV Futures Survey draws together the largest sample of people with HIV/AIDS to have been surveyed in Australia. The survey was conducted from 1 July 1997 to 5 September 1997. The 925 respondents represents over eight percent of the current population of PLWHA in Australia. While a substantial number of the participants are gay men living in Sydney, the survey includes significant numbers of PLWHA from smaller sub-populations such as women, and people living outside NSW and Victoria.
Reeling from a devastating bushfire season, Australia was slow to respond to the Covid-19 threat,... more Reeling from a devastating bushfire season, Australia was slow to respond to the Covid-19 threat, but when modelling in mid-March showed the same pattern of growth that had overwhelmed European health systems, a closely knit network of public health experts gained the ear of government and rapid national action was taken closing workplaces and imposing stay at home orders With investments in localized testing, contact tracing and sequencing to track the genomic fingerprint of cases, by the end of April new cases had been brought to near zero Australia's successful containment efforts have paralleled those of regional neighbours such as China, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan, in stark contrast to the uncontained spread in the United States, Australia's traditional ally The Australian government has tried to navigate these geopolitical tensions by moderating the Trump administration's attempts to turn the pandemic into a political battlefield Renewed outbreaks in Australia ...
This paper examines factors associated with feeling suicidal in a large sample of urban men in Sy... more This paper examines factors associated with feeling suicidal in a large sample of urban men in Sydney and Melbourne, aged 18-50, including heterosexual, gay and bisexual men, HI V antibody positive and HIV antibody negative. As in previous research, sexuality (being homosexual or bisexual) was found to be a major predictor of suicidality. The research went some way towards explaining the close relationship between feeling suicided and sexual orientation. Sexuality interacts with feeling bad in that, once men feel moderately bad/depressed, they are more likely to feel suicidal if they are homosexual or bisexual than if they are heterosexual. In addition, the research found that experience of verbal abuse and physical assault (harassment) increased feeling suicidal for both heterosexual and gay/bi- sexual men, not just for homosexual men as suggested by previous research, and that social isolation in the form of living alone is a further risk factor. Seeking counseling help and taking sexual risks were also independently associated with feeling suicidal. These actions may result from feeling suicidal rather than the reverse, and their association with feeling suicidal warrants further research. Many of the 46 independent variables examined in the research, including HIV antibody status and closeness to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, were related to feeling suicidal only through their association with being gay/bisexual. Celibacy and general risk taking were not related to feeling suicidal in this study.
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