Significant efforts have been undertaken in parts of Canada to shift HIVPrevention and Care for MSM populations away from HIV-specific strategies and toward a more holistic, sexual health approach. This presentation will highlight a number of models being utilized in Canadian communities, ranging from strategies to improve individual sexual health practices to campaigns establishing healthy sexual behaviour as a community norm.
Tensions have developed among those who see this shift as a threat to the ongoing prioritization of HIV prevention, including some members of the AIDS community, policy makers and service providers. However, preliminary results of adopting a more holistic approach indicate that overall sexual health practices have improved, likely resulting in a reduction of at-risk behaviours for HIV transmission/acquisition. Critical to the ongoing success of such efforts is the need for programmers, policy makers and governments to understand, adopt and appropriately fund sexual health approaches.
Conflict of Interest: None disclosed
Financial Support/Funding: None disclosed
Recorded at the the 19th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health - Sexual Health & Rights: A Global Challenge Göteborg (Sweden) - June 21 – 25, 2009
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