09.03.2016
The history of the response to HIV and AIDS in South Africa has seen a complex mix of overlapping psychological, social and biomedical responses over time, as it has progressed from being regarded as an incurable and terrifying infectious disease to a more normalised and treatable chronic illness. This talk seeks to identify and problematise some of the unstated and less helpful conceptualisations underpinning many interventions seeking to promote sexual behaviour change, service access and treatment adherence through psycho-social and community level strategies...
01.03.2016
It is now possible for antiretroviral therapy (ART) to reduce viral load of HIV to the point where an infected person is no longer, or much less, infectious to others. As a result, ‘treatment as prevention’ has become the cornerstone of UNAIDS’s post-2015 global strategy to end AIDS by 2030. As the expansion of treatment provision continues, and access improves, adherence becomes a determining factor in the impact of ART for both treatment and prevention. We’re conducting a number of small scoping studies on challenges to ART adherence in men who have sex ...
03.02.2016
HEARD's research director Dr Govender was recently awarded a National Research Foundation and Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education research capacity building grant to forge systematic research on health systems and HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA). The principle objective of the three year grant is to foster scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries, South Africa and Sweden. The cooperation between HEARD, UKZN and its research partners at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden will focus o...
03.12.2015
Baseline data collection has begun for cluster randomised control trial to assess whether the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures intervention can reduce men’s perpetration and women’s experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) in urban informal settlements in Durban. Baseline data collection will stretch into 2016 in 32 informal settlements, with a total of 1280 young people recruited into the study. HEARD researcher and the principal investigator on the project Dr Andrew Gibbs said “There’s growing evidence that strengthening women’s economic auton...
03.12.2015
We need to work with men and boys as become a key mantra of health programmes globally, particularly those concerned with HIV, violence and more recently sexual and reproductive health and rights, and yet there is very little known about how effective these programmes are, nor of the challenges, opportunities and politics of this work. HEARD researcher Dr Andrew Gibbs is the lead editor, alongside Dr Cathy Vaughan (Melbourne University) and Prof Peter Aggleton (Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Australia) of a special issue of Culture, Health and Sexualit...
03.12.2015
“What are the challenges to antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence among Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, and Intersex (LGBTI) living with HIV in east and southern Africa?” This embodies the question formed by MSM and LGBTI community activists who attended an amfAR-organised one and a half day meeting to develop an LGBTI research agenda in 2014. This question, asked by the communities it concerns, is particularly topical given that ‘treatment as prevention’ has become the cornerstone of UNAIDS’s post-2015 global st...
02.12.2015
Unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity. Globally, an estimated 47,000 women die from unsafe abortions each year with an additional 5 million injuries occurring as a result of complications due to unsafe procedures (WHO, 2011). These injuries result in short and long term health consequences for women, including infertility and fistula, and have far reaching economic and societal costs. Ninety-eight percent of all unsafe abortions occur in low to middle income countries. It is a particularly pressing health issue for the Af...
01.12.2015
Without looking at improving a whole range of sexual and reproductive health services, and without massively scaling up public health system’s ability to help women to prevent HIV the resources currently spent on women, services cannot be said to have much of a long-term impact on gender relations.
Last year, the Journal of AIDS published an original research led by Katherine Dovel in which the research group made the following assertion; “AIDS prevalence may have the face of a woman but AIDS mortality has the face of a man.” The research group go on to sugg...
01.12.2015
Prof Nana Poku | HEARD's Executive Director
The UNAIDS Fast-Tracking to Zero Strategy is on its own a large and rightly ambitious undertaking, building on the success of the fifteen-year span of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). MDG 6 was closely related to, and broadly consonant with the other MDGs, especially with respect to the health and well-being of women and girls. It is important that the headline statistics from the conclusion of MDG6 receive the widest possible circulation; and expressions of satisfaction and gratitude not only have their place bu...
05.09.2015
With the demand to remain relevant in a changing global health development environment, HEARD has undergone some essential organisational changes. We have a new mission – to be the leading institution in interdisciplinary health research and education in Africa, in order to influence policy and practice to more effectively address Africa’s health challenges. In order to achieve this goal, we’ve expanded and refined our research agenda, focus areas, policy engagements as an applied research centre.
Our dynamic research agenda and change in focus are outlined...
