Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships

Most hepatitis C transmission occurs through the sharing of equipment used for injecting drugs, and in many settings, the majority of equipment sharing occurs between sexual partners. Despite this, few health promotion materials directly address sexual partnerships, couples or social relationships i...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fraser, Suzanne, Treloar, C., Bryant, J., Rhodes, T.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Taylor and Francis 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/6484
_version_ 1848745089146290176
author Fraser, Suzanne
Treloar, C.
Bryant, J.
Rhodes, T.
author_facet Fraser, Suzanne
Treloar, C.
Bryant, J.
Rhodes, T.
author_sort Fraser, Suzanne
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Most hepatitis C transmission occurs through the sharing of equipment used for injecting drugs, and in many settings, the majority of equipment sharing occurs between sexual partners. Despite this, few health promotion materials directly address sexual partnerships, couples or social relationships in general. This blindspot is one example of the ways in which prevention education in the area of drug use would benefit from careful rethinking. Focusing on the case of Australia, we argue that hepatitis C prevention education insufficiently acknowledges or mobilize social relationships, social dynamics and social contexts in its efforts to prevent hepatitis C transmission. This can lead it to reproduce the conditions for the very problems it seeks to solve. We further argue that hepatitis C prevention education is insufficiently attentive to its own social location, drawing too little on stakeholder expertise. Its effectiveness relies upon its social context, including the collaborative input and engagement of affected communities and other stakeholders. Better recognizing this would produce a stronger foundation for developing prevention strategies. As we conclude, this social foundation for hepatitis C prevention could be articulated into national, collaboratively developed guidelines on effective communication in hepatitis C and injecting drug use risk.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T06:11:49Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-6484
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T06:11:49Z
publishDate 2014
publisher Taylor and Francis
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-64842017-09-13T14:42:16Z Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships Fraser, Suzanne Treloar, C. Bryant, J. Rhodes, T. Most hepatitis C transmission occurs through the sharing of equipment used for injecting drugs, and in many settings, the majority of equipment sharing occurs between sexual partners. Despite this, few health promotion materials directly address sexual partnerships, couples or social relationships in general. This blindspot is one example of the ways in which prevention education in the area of drug use would benefit from careful rethinking. Focusing on the case of Australia, we argue that hepatitis C prevention education insufficiently acknowledges or mobilize social relationships, social dynamics and social contexts in its efforts to prevent hepatitis C transmission. This can lead it to reproduce the conditions for the very problems it seeks to solve. We further argue that hepatitis C prevention education is insufficiently attentive to its own social location, drawing too little on stakeholder expertise. Its effectiveness relies upon its social context, including the collaborative input and engagement of affected communities and other stakeholders. Better recognizing this would produce a stronger foundation for developing prevention strategies. As we conclude, this social foundation for hepatitis C prevention could be articulated into national, collaboratively developed guidelines on effective communication in hepatitis C and injecting drug use risk. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/6484 10.3109/09687637.2013.776517 Taylor and Francis fulltext
spellingShingle Fraser, Suzanne
Treloar, C.
Bryant, J.
Rhodes, T.
Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships
title Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships
title_full Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships
title_fullStr Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships
title_full_unstemmed Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships
title_short Hepatitis C prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships
title_sort hepatitis c prevention education needs to be grounded in social relationships
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/6484