Brian Condran
Brian Condran is a second-year Master’s candidate studying Health Promotion at Dalhousie University under the supervision of Dr. Jacqueline Gahagan. To date, Brian’s research has focused on HIV/STI prevention, the analysis of policies that govern HIV/STI screening, holistic models of LGBTQ health, and the use of knowledge translation and exchange and interprofessional collaboration as tools in the pursuit of health equity within Canada. Brian is a life-long resident of the Halifax Regional Municipality, and holds positions on the Board of Directors for the Public Health Association of Nova Scotia (PHANS) and the Nova Scotia Health Promotion Clearinghouse.
Interaction of HIV integration and criminalization of non-disclosure to inform policy in Nova Scotia.
Issues such as the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, and the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) pending shift to an integrated approach to HIV/STI prevention are concerns for many Canadian HIV prevention stakeholders, and for some who work in STI prevention. To date, there has been no examination of the impact of integration and criminalization on the accessibility of STI testing. Given the ongoing challenges for HIV/STI prevention within Nova Scotia (scare funding and resources, lack of proximal services in rural areas, etc.), an in-depth examination of these potential challenges, as well as potential opportunities, is warranted.
By employing a grounded-theory based approach to the collection and analysis of extant text data (drawn from policy documents and healthcare priority statements) and stakeholder interviews with prevention experts from two district health authorities within Nova Scotia, the proposed study address these issues in two ways: First, it will support exploration of challenges and opportunities regarding the accessibility of HIV/STI testing that emerge from the intersection of the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, the Public Health Agency of Canada’s pending shift toward an integrated approach to HIV prevention, and methods of HIV/STI testing (nominal, non-nominal, and/or rapid point of care) that are currently available (or unavailable) within Nova Scotia. Second, this study will serve as a knowledge translation and exchange mechanism among HIV/STI prevention stakeholders within the province, and facilitate the development of the next generation of multidisciplinary and intersectoral responses to the aforementioned challenges.
