Family is complicated: What does this mean for supporting families and people living with HIV, hepatitis C, or hepatitis B?

🠘 Back to ARCSHS events

In conjunction with World Hepatitis Day 2022

Family is complicated: What does this mean for supporting families and people living with HIV, hepatitis C, or hepatitis B?

Family is at once a site of belonging, ambivalence, and contestation, and the challenges of negotiating family life are often heightened for individuals living with stigmatised illnesses. Despite these potential difficulties, family can be a source of informal care, (un)conditional support, and contribute enormously to health, wellbeing, culture, and identity. We explored these topics across the ‘my health, our family’ project, the first study to document the experiences of serodiscordant (mixed virus status) families in Australia. We conducted interviews with key informants, with people living with one or more bloodborne viruses (including hepatitis B or C, and HIV), and with family members. Who comprised ‘family’ and what it meant was open to participants, and remained  a point of exploration and reflection in analysis. Accordingly, we frame serodiscordant families as diverse and complex; navigated and imagined through relational histories, embodied connections, and stigma related to bloodborne viruses. But what does this complexity mean for health and social services and policy frameworks which seek to support serodiscordant families? And why does this matter in an era of biomedical triumphalism for the management and treatment of bloodborne viruses? Family-inclusive approaches that are sensitive to the complexity of family can reduce stigma, engage families in promoting education and care, and contribute to the broader life worlds of people living with blood-borne viruses. But we emphasise that family is not a panacea; engaging with the complexity of families also requires a tolerance for its rich and stubborn messiness.

About the presenters

Anthony K J Smith (he/him) is a PhD Candidate and Research Officer at the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW Sydney. He is a qualitative researcher and sociologist of health, gender and sexuality, with a focus on engaging healthcare professionals and communities with HIV and viral hepatitis prevention, care, and surveillance; and LGBTQ+ health.

Christy Newman (they/them) is Professor at the Centre for Social Research in Health and Associate Dean Engagement and Impact in Arts, Design and Architecture at UNSW Sydney. They are a qualitative social researcher of health, sexuality and gender, with a particular focus on HIV and viral hepatitis, sexual and reproductive health, queer and trans health, and intersections with diverse experiences and expressions of gender, sexuality, relationships, and families

Kerryn Drysdale (she/her) is a Research Fellow atthe Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW Sydney. Through her disciplinary background in Cultural Studies, Kerryn seeks to apply a critical cultural lens to the experiences and expressions of health and wellbeing, especially among vulnerable or marginalised communities, as they pertain to public health concerns.

Access

This event will be recorded and later published with full captions. A live Auslan interpreter is available on request; please let us know as soon as possible to allow for interpreter bookings.