Garrett Prestage reflects on 30 years of Australian HIV research

On 2 May 2019, NAPWHA hosted a 1-day forum on ‘Research and representation: the meaningful involvement of people living with HIV in research activities’ where NAPWHA members and networks consisting of representatives from community-based organisations across all Australian States and Territories met with several researchers intimately involved in working with HIV positive people and communities.

The workshop aimed to provide a space for reflection on recent research developments and assist PLHIV organisations and their representatives to build their capacity to engage in future research development.

Associate Professor Garrett PrestageThe below is a transcript of the presentation from Associate Professor Garrett Prestage of the Kirby Institute UNSW, who reflected on 30 years of Australian HIV research and spoke of his own perceptions on how research done about and with people with HIV has changed over the years. He focused primarily on the communities of HIV-positive gay men.

Social context in research matters

For me, to do good research necessarily means ensuring that the people being researched are part of the research process, and that the research should ultimately be of benefit to the community. However, research can’t be conducted without the expertise of researchers – and I’d argue it can’t be done properly without social researchers, because social context matters.

Research findings aren’t always welcome, and they can be used for good or ill; there’s a necessary balance that comes from the collaboration between community and research that hopefully improves the quality of research outcomes for everyone.


Research is always political

And that brings me to my second point, that research is always political.

Research is very powerful, and research findings are inevitably used as the basis for political and social change. Well-used research is hard to ignore.

The people who comprised the early responders to HIV, at least within the gay community, were others like me who had cut their teeth within the gay movement. So, they had a natural inclination to demand community engagement and political leadership.

When the first HIV research initiatives were started – and that was very early in the response – these early HIV activists made sure that the research that was being conducted was done in ways that ensured community involvement in the process, and was used politically to the benefit of the community.

So, those twin principles were built into the HIV response from the outset. Of course, for the most part, the people in government, clinical research, and social research that we had to work with were good people who were open to these ideas anyway.

But I think it’s important when we reflect on how the Australian partnership response came to be as it is, that we remember just how much our own community activists played a role in making sure that was the case.


Nothing about us, without us

Nothing about us, without us – was something that was there from the start, though not articulated quite so succinctly. But I don’t want to characterise this approach to research as consistently collaborative or beneficial.

There’s been a lot of shifts along the way, and not least has been how people with HIV have been positioned.

For the most part, HIV-positive men participating in the early clinical research were positioned as patients. At that time, HIV infection was mostly a death sentence. And, the gay community was a close community. The clinics involved were often led by doctors who were gay themselves, and even when they weren’t, it was still very clear that the doctors involved felt very close to the men who were getting infected and then rapidly deteriorating, and dying, before their eyes. It was a crisis, and they just wanted to find something, anything, that might help.


A real tension emerged between researchers and community

The efforts of clinical research were on finding, and testing treatment options. And a real tension emerged between researchers and community.

Clinical researchers felt bound by the requirements of gold standard clinical research. Yes, they wanted people with HIV to get treated as quickly as possible, but they needed to ensure that the treatments were properly proven to work.

Community activists didn’t disagree with this in principle, but in practice they often felt it was either too slow or it failed to account for the dire circumstances of some individuals who were so sick or so close to death, that they felt it was worth trying even unproven treatments.

This difference in approach was a recurring theme over several years. For the most part, compromises were worked out, even if there were confrontations along the way. And, just quietly, there was quite a bit of sidestepping the rules – on both sides.

Doctors finding some way to get treatments to patients with little hope otherwise, and patients figuring out who had the treatments and sharing them with those who needed them most. It wasn’t good science, but it was human – and really, it didn’t unduly impact the research.


Treatments back then were harsh, and complicated

In the late 1990s, the fact that treatments now meant that people were no longer facing inevitable death from AIDS was fantastic, of course. Many of us have our Lazarus stories of friends who came back from their deathbeds. But the treatments back then were harsh, and complicated.

Clinical researchers wanted to reduce the burden, of course, but they also wanted the treatments to be effective. They offered multiple approaches over the years.

  • Hit hard and hit early.
  • Treatment interruption.
  • Delayed treatment until clinical markers indicated it was necessary… and back again.

Mostly, people followed the guidelines provided by their doctors.

So far, I haven’t really mentioned the role of social researchers.

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During the earlier periods, social research had a far larger role in understanding prevention than treatment

Regarding people with HIV, social research mainly provided information about their experiences, as patients. Which was and is very useful, especially in helping support people with HIV get heard. And, when clinical research was focused on how best to implement treatments, social research has indeed been especially useful in highlighting just how important is personal experience, and the capacity of individual ‘patients’ to act on different treatment strategies.

There is another way, though, that social research has been critical to understanding the experiences of people with HIV – how HIV positive people balance risk and pleasure to protect their partners.

I remember about 25 years ago, I mentioned how many Poz men in our cohort study weren’t using condoms with each other, and that it was completely unsurprising. Why would they? Ross Duffin commented that, of course, Poz men had been doing that forever.

But, at the time, that was simply not spoken about. On the one hand, because it didn’t matter – the concern was all about transmission and so behaviours that didn’t lead to transmission were mostly ignored. It was also unspoken because positive people’s intimate lives, and the emotional well-being that follows from that, weren’t always thought of as an essential precondition for effective treatment.


Since treatments, however, something fundamental happened

This was in around how people with HIV came to understand that balance between risk and pleasure, in the decisions about protecting partners.

I was looking back over old questionnaires the other day, and I noticed in 1999 we were asking gay men a question about whether having an undetectable viral load reduced the likelihood of an HIV-positive man transmitting HIV to his partners. That’s 20 years ago! And how long was it between then and when undetectable viral load was recognised as an effective basis for risk reduction? That’s right – a long, long time. And that’s despite the fact that even in the late 90s it was known that if pregnant HIV-positive women were on treatment they could probably avoid mother-to-child transmission.

So, similar to when I noted in the early 1990s that many Poz men were having condomless sex with each other, many people with HIV could easily see the evidence about viral load.


Undetectable meant untransmissible… why did it take so long?

Over a decade ago, Asha Persson from the Centre of Social Research in Health at UNSW noted that many serodiscordant couples were discarding condoms when the positive partner had undetectable viral load. Because, as they could see it, despite the lack of advice from anyone to support them in their decisions, they were confident that undetectable meant untransmissible. And they were right – as I know some of you in this room can testify to and who haven’t always been treated fairly for acting rationally based on the evidence. But, why did it take so long?

Now, yes, of course, the research had to be done, to absolutely provide the proof. Of course, it did. Just as it had to be done in the search for effective treatments. But, just as with the treatments research, people can’t always wait for proof – at least not for the absolute certainties that are usually mandated before policy can change. When logic dictates a well-informed interpretation of the available evidence, many people will act on it, ahead of the absolute proof. They aren’t always proven correct, but in the case of HIV they often were. People make these decisions because life is more than just risk-avoidance. It’s also about pleasure and intimacy.

Although, for people with HIV those things are always in balance against the possibility of endangering one’s partner, and that’s no small consideration for most Poz people who would find such an outcome to be deeply traumatic.

At this point in the epidemic, however, I think people with HIV are in a very different position to what used to be the case.

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HIV has become less and less of a marker of difference over time

Treatments research remains important, but it’s about making improvements to what for most people with HIV is a pretty good situation, and about identifying new options for the small proportion of people whose current options are limited. And, because the current situation is pretty good, that also means that most diagnosed people with HIV are undetectable, and therefore represent no risk for transmission.

On the other hand, the advent of PrEP means that considerations about HIV transmission risk are becoming less and less of a factor, at least for an increasing proportion of gay men. While HIV stigma is still clearly present, it’s also obvious that there’s less and less need for gay men to even discuss HIV.

These are, of course, good things – profoundly good things. But, it leaves a question about where people with HIV actually fit in the research agenda.

In some ways, they have perhaps become somewhat peripheral to the HIV research endeavour. Indeed, there’s also been a shift in the way people with HIV think of themselves over the past two decades.

We started to notice in the early 2000s that Poz men were less likely to consider their HIV status as central to how they viewed themselves, or to consider themselves as part of a Poz community. And HIV has become less and less of a marker of difference over time.

It still matters, of course, and that’s very clear when you read the transcripts of interviews we conduct with recent seroconverters. No matter how much they had put HIV out of their mind beforehand, or how much they had thought of it as not being such a big deal anymore, once they receive that diagnosis then they realize just how much it does still matter.

But, even so, the fact that they had previously often thought of it that way (or not at all), highlights just how peripheral HIV is becoming.


I’ve been left wondering if the issue is more: What’s the role of the effectively treated, healthy person with HIV in HIV research now?

There are three categories of people with HIV that research is mainly concerned with these days:

  • undiagnosed individuals;
  • those who have been diagnosed but aren’t yet treated and virally suppressed;
  • and those for whom treatments have failed, or at least aren’t working so well.

I could be cynical and say this is all driven by a prevention paradigm where individuals with HIV are just seen as vectors for potential transmission. I think there’s some of that in the macro decision making process, but at the more personal level, individual researchers, and policymakers, are equally driven by the need to ensure all people with HIV have access to effective, and easy treatment.


The RISE study

RISE logoI should specifically talk about the HIV Seroconversion Study and its current incarnation, the RISE study (Recently Diagnosed and the Impact of Support of the Experience of HIV). As many of you know, there’s been some version of a seroconversion study in Australia since 1992. That, in itself, is remarkable – and unique in the world. The stories and experiences of people recently diagnosed with HIV are profoundly insightful, and moving. But, the focus in the current RISE study is on people’s experiences after their diagnosis – how easily they transition to treatments, what’s the impact of their diagnosis on their relationships, and how does it affect their emotional wellbeing long-term.

A particularly relevant point about RISE concerns how much more difficult it’s been to enrol people into the study. We’ve always had difficulty getting clinics to refer people into the Seroconversion Studies, and in the previous incarnation we relied on people either finding their own way to the study when they searched online about HIV after their diagnosis, or being referred from a peer-support program in one of the community organisations.

For RISE, the clinics have continued to not refer people, despite good intentions. But also, not many people are finding the study themselves. I suspect they’re less likely to be going home and doing online searches to the same extent as they used to. Nor are many referred from the community org programs. Of course, the organisations have fewer programs because fewer people want to join them. It’s probably important to note that the most common source of enrollments is actually through TIM (The Institute of Many). Those that do enroll into RISE seem to be as willing as ever to participate, so I suspect this is not so much about willingness as it is about not needing the same kinds of information and support as used to be the case and which also led to them finding the study.

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…they can’t transmit HIV anyway, so who cares?

None of that, however, speaks to the role of healthy, effectively treated people with HIV in ongoing research agendas.

There are, undoubtedly, good reasons why people with HIV who are effectively treated need not always be considered separately anymore. Why should they be? Their overall health seems to not be especially different to many other people, probably better than most with ongoing health conditions. And, they can’t transmit HIV anyway, so who cares?

Ah, but there’s the rub. Who cares!


As long as anti-HIV stigma persists…

The trouble is of course, that a lot of people do still care, and care enough to be either fearful or rejecting. Sure, it’s happening less often than was the case in the past, but it’s far from an insignificant issue. In the recent Telling survey, we found that even among men on PrEP many still avoid sex with Poz guys, if they knew. Stigma, regardless of its origin, or even motivation, is bad enough in itself. But, its demoralising effects on emotional well-being can do real harm, and can ultimately impact on things like treatment adherence.

Stigma isn’t the only thing at play here, although it’s probably the single most outstanding issue that potentially impacts on all aspects of both treatment and prevention research.

There’s a good case for why many effectively treated people with HIV quietly slip into the background to just be like other people without making HIV a visible presence in their lives. Despite that inclination by some, many others feel that HIV is still an important consideration in their lives. And as long as it makes some sort of difference, then it’s important that people with HIV have a visible presence in decisions about research that affects them, even if it’s not directly ‘about them’.

However, I suspect this means that the expectations of engagement that were often assumed in the past can’t be expected to proceed in the same way, or at all.

Increasingly, as I see it, at least in relation to gay community based social research, our focus is less and less:

  • on Poz men and more and more on gay men in general;
  • or, in relation to PrEP, on neg men only;
  • or, on undiagnosed men and how to get them diagnosed.

But, in all of that, Poz men have key insights, and specific interests – or at least, they’ll continue to have those interests as long as anti-HIV stigma persists.


So, what do I reckon is in the future for research among people with HIV?

Clearly, stigma remains the key issue, and it impacts on every aspect of HIV research. And people with HIV must be deeply involved in any research about HIV stigma. Beyond that, there are those three categories of people who have become the priority categories of people with HIV:

  • Undiagnosed;
  • not yet treated;
  • and ineffectively treated.

All three are small groups, and often not empowered to advocate on their own behalf.

So, it is of course incumbent on HIV community-based organisations to represent, and protect their interests.

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About Associate Professor Garrett Prestage

Garrett is a sociologist who works in both quantitative and qualitative social and behavioural research and is committed to community-based research. He mainly works in the fields of risk behaviour and sexuality. Garrett’s research interests include: HIV transmission and prevention among gay men; the roles of identity and community in understanding how individuals negotiate risk and pleasure in their lives; survey design and questionnaire development. Garrett has been actively involved in the gay community for over thirty years and has worked in gay community-based research since 1983. His first HIV-related research was in 1985. He currently leads the HIV Seroconversion Study and the Pleasure and Sexual Health (PASH) Study, and is an Investigator on the Gay Community Periodic Surveys as well as several other studies.  Read Associate Professor Garrett Prestage’s full biography

Quantifying unmet HIV treatment needs: Peers explain research on TikTok

Did you know your relationship with your doctor can have a direct impact on your health? This explainer was made by people living with HIV—Anth, Beau and Heather—and was made to help share some of the messages from a research paper that explored the unmet treatment needs among people living with HIV in Australia and other countries.

Access the research paper through the link buttons below. You can also find out more (below) about the peers behind the ‘Peers Explain’ TikTok channel, and read about how this community-led knowledge translation initiative which references the ViiV Positive Perspectives 2 Survey came about.

About the initiative

Meet the Peers

Meet the peers from the newly established Peers Explain TikTok channel.

Anth McCarthy

Anth McCarthy has lived openly with HIV since 2016. He works with a broad cross-section of people living with HIV in his role as Peer Navigator at Living Positive Victoria. In particular, he provides targeted peer support to other heterosexual men living with HIV. He collaborates with them individually and in groups, to promote well-being, build resilience, build community and a sense of connection to the Body Positive. From 2020, he was a Community Advocate for the NAPWHA HIV Health Literacy project, where he continues to advocate for and on behalf of positive heterosexual men with a collective HetMAN Australia (the Heterosexual Men’s Advocacy Network).

Heather Ellis

Heather Ellis is a freelance journalist and author of two bestselling travel memoirs. She has lived with HIV since 1995 and is a former Chair of Positive Women Victoria, Australia’s only fully funded support and advocacy group for women living with HIV. With the organisation in 2021, Heather produced Our Stories: Ending HIV Stigma, a podcast about women, by women living with HIV in Australia to challenge the myths and stereotypes that feed HIV stigma. As part of the NAPWHA HIV Health Literacy Framework project, Heather was a co-author of the community resource Breastfeeding for women living with HIV In Australia published in September 2021.

Beau Newham

Beau Newham upon joining the team as Peer Navigator at Living Positive Victoria, brings the experiences of working alongside HIV-positive communities in Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia. Over the last 7 years, Beau has seen first-hand the devastating impact HIV continues to have on neighbouring countries, and communities at the margins. At the same time, seen the profound change made possible by people living with HIV coming together to support each other and advocate for PLHIV-centred HIV responses.

How did the ‘Peers Explain’ initiative come about?

In November 2021, three of the authors (Ann Maccarrone, Fraser Drummond and Brent Allan) of a recent paper on Quantifying unmet treatment needs among people living with HIV in Australia and other countries published in Population Medicine Oct 2021/Vol 3 partnered with three community advocates (Beau Newham, Heather Elis and Anthony McCarthy) and people living with HIV in Australia who were interested in taking this paper and creating a community and PLHIV-specific document which summarises the research for greater accessibility.

What is knowledge translation?

Knowledge Translation (KT) is a commonly used practice across many disciplines to take what would otherwise be academic and conference papers to reconfigure and translate these into community accessible resources.

The aim of KT is to ensure that knowledge development is made more accessible to a greater body of people and in particular those involved as the subjects in the research and the agencies that are commissioned to support them.

What were the knowledge translation activities developed?

Over December 2021 and January 2022, the authors guided the community advocates through their comprehension of the paper and assisted with the creation of a plain English, easily accessible version of the paper.

What happened next was the community advocates developing content including a short video (TikTok style; in a plain English summary) and two memes to be used to promote access to the paper and the important messages therein.  The work (outputs) of these three community advocates can also be found on this summary webpage.

Above:  Community Advocates and supporting community organisations have promoted the knowledge translation content across different social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Key reflections on the KT project

  • The process developed new partnership and relationships across professional disciplines
  • The process highlighted how critically important community advocates are to knowledge translation being accessible and useful
  • Restrictions on in-person work elongated the time needed to do the work
  • Payment to community advocates is critical so the project is viewed and valued as the important work it is
  • All three community advocates spent approximately 1 full day on the project over the course of 3-4 months
  • The process and permission allowed creativity and lateral thinking to be brought to the foreground
  • Important once the outputs are done to consider promotion and communication activities as a full team

The learning and perspectives on the process have been used to develop a submitted abstract for the AIDS2022 conference in Montréal in July 2022 and as a proposed abstract for Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference 2022.

We hope that the outcomes from this project can more fully demonstrate that the publication of academic papers is not the end point of research and analysis but that all authors and the community should better invest their time and efforts in comprehensive KT projects such as this one.

#PeersExplain Poster

More about Positive Perspectives 2

Above:  The ViiV Positive Perspectives 2 (PP2) study is a multi-country survey which was created to generate insights into the unmet needs of people living with HIV (PLHIV). It is one of the largest global, HIV patient-reported outcomes studies involving 2,389 PLHIV across 25 countries.

NAPWHA has been a partner of this study to disseminate research findings to the Australian PLHIV community.

Positive Perspective 2 survey community webinar

TIM Townhall community webinar

Quality of Life for All symposium

Finding Joy virtual community event

  • On May 13, 2022 — NAPWHA is hosting an online community event ‘Finding Joy’ will feature the launch of the Australian Community Accord on Quality of Life for People with HIV, which incorporates the insights and experiences that people living with HIV shared with us at the online community events NAPWHA held in 2021.

What the research found

Australians living with HIV have among the highest levels of satisfaction with their HIV care. New research considered Australian data from the international Positive Perspectives 2 study. It looked for differences between people with HIV in Australia and other countries. Despite the positive overall results, Australian participants were unhappy with their mental health. They also had concerns about long-term side effects of HIV treatment. These concerns are not always addressed by HIV care providers.

What is Positive Perspectives 2?

This web-based survey was conducted in 2019. It gathered data from 2,389 people on HIV treatment, including 120 from Australia. It looked for differences in treatment attitudes and behaviours. The aim was to identify unmet needs and improve ‘person-centred’ care.

What is person-centred care?

Person-centred care goes beyond achieving undetectable viral load. It aims at good quality of life. This happens when people with HIV can talk to their doctor freely about their mental and physical health. The doctor listens and offers solutions. Together, people with HIV are partners in their own care.

What is the ‘fourth 90’?

Good quality of life has been proposed as the ‘fourth 90.’ What does this mean?

Back in 2013, UNAIDS set three targets for ending the HIV epidemic.

  • 90% of people with HIV know their status.
  • 90% of diagnosed people are on treatment.
  • 90% of people on treatment have undetectable viral load.

Researchers and community leaders have pushed for a fourth 90. Quality of life is more than viral suppression. It underpins everything we do.

What the research found

  • Most participants had an undetectable viral load (97%).
  • Most participants were satisfied with their HIV care (83%).
  • Most participants were not stressed about taking their pills each day.
  • A third reported needing help with their mental health (35%).

What about side effects?

Certain issues were concerns for people with HIV in all 25 countries surveyed. These include side effects, the number of pills taken each day, and long term health. A third of participants in Australia (31%) reported side effects from HIV medication. The highest was Mexico at 75%. About two thirds of all participants worried about long-term effects of HIV treatments, including 63% in Australia. The highest level of concern was in Argentina (88%).

Australia leads the world in some respects. People with HIV in Australia feel comfortable talking to their doctor about side effects (81%) and HIV treatments (93%). Three quarters said their doctor asks for their views before prescribing HIV treatments (76%).

Agreeing on a treatment plan

To improve person-centred care, the research suggests a treatment plan should be created. It should be evaluated regularly, even when you are happy with your medication. This can happen through a regular conversation with your HIV care provider. It should address your concerns about long term effects of treatment, such as liver, kidney and bone health.

The research found communication between doctors and patients can be improved. In particular, participants felt they were taking up too much of their doctors’ time. There may not be enough time in appointments to discuss patient concerns.

What are the next steps?

The research helps us understand the needs and preferences of people with HIV in Australia and around the world. This can help us improve person-centred care and quality of life for people with HIV.

Many studies report people with HIV have lower quality of life. This includes having more age-related illness earlier in life. This can mean taking other medications in addition to HIV treatment. This can lead to ‘polypharmacy,’ or taking more than five pills daily.

To achieve good quality of life for all people with HIV, treatment and care must be holistic. This means care providers consider both physical and mental health concerns. They offer solutions, which may include new treatment options. They engage people with HIV in shared decision-making about their care.

Limitations to keep in mind

Only fourteen Australian women participated in the survey. We need to look at other research and resources to understand the experiences of positive women.

Similarly, the survey did not ask about the race/ethnicity of participants. Indigenous and culturally diverse people may have worse experiences of HIV treatment and care.

Survey participants were drawn from people already engaged with PLHIV organisations. They are likely to be doing better than people who are not connected with care and support.

These limitations are not reasons to dismiss the research findings. If anything, they underscore the need for improvements in patient-centred care.