CoPAHM Updates

SiREN and CoPAHM at ASHM Australasian HIV&AIDS and Sexual Health conferences.  We had a number of posters and presentations at the conferences that you may like to read. If you would like any more details, please get in touch.

  • Dr Roanna Lobo, 'Hard critique of 5 years since the HIV and Mobility in Australia Road Map for Action: What has changed?'
  • Gemma Crawford, 'Reducing HIV acquisition among Australian male expatriates, longer-term and frequent travellers to Southeast Asia: Exploring opportunities for peer and social network interventions'
  • CoPAHM, 'What Are the Barriers to Help-Seeking and How Do We Respond To HIV And Other STIs Among Migrants From Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia Living in High Income Countries: Findings from Two Linked Systematic Reviews'
  • CoPAHM, 'HIV and Mobility in Australia: Creating a Coalition for Action'
  • Dr Daniel Vujcich, 'Best Practices In the Administration of Sexual Health and Blood-Borne Virus Surveys In Migrant Populations: Lessons From The  Literature'
  • Corie Gray, 'Srikandi: Pathways To HIV Testing For Women From Indonesia Living In Western Australia'

You can view the full list of SiREN presentations at ASHM 2019 here.

New faces at CoPAHM and SiREN.
Nang Nge Nge Phoo is completing her PhD with SiREN. Nang studied medicine and worked for health-related humanitarian and development projects in Myanmar. This involved provision of curative and preventive services related to HIV and sexually transmissible infections, and adapting these services as per the socio-cultural backgrounds of beneficiaries across different states and regions in Myanmar. 

Nang's PhD is titled, 'Comparison of modes of survey administration in assessing hepatitis B knowledge, attitudes and practices among Myanmar community in Perth, Western Australia'. The project will be exploring whether the use of pictures illustrating questions and response options accompanied by audio recordings of questionnaires and navigation in the national languages of source and receiving countries is acceptable by culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) migrants who have language barriers and limited literacy.

Sanyulandy Leowalu is in her final year of Master of Sexology at Curtin University. She is currently completing her practicum with the CoPAHM team and is creating a toolkit on developing HIV resources for CaLD communities. The toolkit aims to provide guidance for practitioners working in developing HIV information, education, and communication materials. The toolkit contains information, theories and models, tools, and quick links to assist practitioners in planning, implementing and evaluating HIV information, education and communication (IEC) resources for CaLD and migrant populations. 

Apu Karajagi is a final year Masters of Public Health and Graduate Diploma in Health Promotion student at Curtin University. She volunteered for CoPAHM to help with two projects; to develop a case study template to showcase work on HIV and mobility on the CoPAHM website, and to help analyse and code interviews completed on GPs about barriers to offering HIV testing. Her project included designing a template and contacting external stakeholders to identify work currently being undertaken on HIV and Mobility, as well as learning to code and using InVivo to thematically analyse qualitative data. She also assisted in updating the CoPAHM subscriber contact list for relevant members to be up-to-date with CoPAHM news.

Migrant Blood-borne Virus and Sexual Health Survey
The ARC Linkage Project (reducing STI and BBV disparities in CaLD populations) is now known as MiBSS (Migrant Blood-borne Virus and Sexual Health Survey).  

Data collection for Stage One (qualitative interviews and focus group discussions) commenced in July 2019. A survey instrument has been drafted in preparation for Stage Two. The instrument builds on previously tested surveys and is designed to measure knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and practices in relation to STIs and BBVs. The survey will be tested with participants in Stage One prior to dissemination in 2020. 

Curtin University is working with local project partners (Ethnic Communities Council of WA, Relationships Australia SA and Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health) to facilitate the employment of peer researchers to assist with data collection. A Sexual Health Research Fund Grant was recently awarded to Curtin University and Queensland University of Technology (partnering with University of Southern Queensland, Ethnic Communities Council Queensland and True Relationships) to extend the study to Queensland.

Presentations from ASHM 

We have compiled a number of posters and presentations from the ASHM conferences that relate to HIV and Mobility that you may be interested in. Mobility was a theme of two symposiums, and we look forward to more inclusion of content related to migrant and mobile populations at ASHM 2020. 

Mobility

  • Alexander Kendrew, 'Countering the trend of increased diagnosis among mobile and migrant populations' (poster)

Sharon Robinson shared her reflections from the Mobility session, titled 'Equity of access.. enough talk, time for action' which you can read here. 

Migrant and CALD

  • Satrio Nindyo Istiko (Tiko), 'Empowering multicultural PLHIV through adaptable and flexible community-led HIV service'
  • Dr Jen Power, 'Challenges for research about the HIV care and support needs of PLHIV from migrant populations in Australia'. Speaker notes here. 
  • Dr Chris Lemoh, 'Who cares (wins)' (abstract) 
  • Loc Nguyen, 'Belonging and Becoming - Sexual health peer education for Asian gay men' (audio)
  • Susan McGuckin, 'Let's go Hetero: Using Facebook to engage with heterosexual and CALD communities'
  • Dr Nicholas Medland, 'Treatment and PrEP for migrant/ mobile populations: What are the emerging issues around Treatment, PrEP acceptability, including understandings around accessing treatment and initiating PrEP among these key priority populations?'
  • A/Prof Kathy Petoumenos, 'Recent estimates of the number of Medicare Ineligible PLHIV in Australia' (audio)

International students

  • Dr Chris Bourne, 'Health service, peer and/or structural and policy interventions to respond to sexual health for international students'
  • Tim Chen, 'When worlds collide: Engaging Asian MSM international students in sexual services and social inclusion events' (audio)
  • Dr Daniel Demant, 'Effects of LGBT community connectedness and participation on sexual health in international MSM students'
  • Dr Cameryn Garret, 'It's like the blind leading the blind: Exploring the reproductive and sexual health of international students in Australia' 
  • A/Prof Melissa Kang, 'Sexual health knowledge, behaviour and health service use among international MSM students in Australia'
  • Joe Staniszewski, 'More infections but less risk: Unpacking the sexual health needs of Medicare-ineligible gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men attending MClinic in Perth, Western Australia' 

You can view all presentations at the Conference website.