Towards a health-enabling working environment: developing and testing interventions to decrease HIV- and TB-stigma among healthcare workers in the Free State Province, South Africa.

In the context of a devastating HIV/AIDS-TB co-epidemic and severe human resource shortages in the South African health sector, HIV- and TB-related stigmatization among the healthcare workforce does not only threaten the workforce's own health but also the health of the broader population visiting the health facilities. In the context of a devastating HIV/AIDS-TB co-epidemic and severe human resource shortages in the South African health sector, HIV- and TB-related stigmatization among the healthcare workforce does not only threaten the workforce's own health but also the health of the broader population visiting the health facilities. As a response, the proposed DOCPRO BOF-project aims to (1) scientifically assess the extent and sources of HIV and TB-related stigma among the healthcare workforce as well as (2) develop and (3) test evidence-based stigma-reduction interventions in randomly selected public hospitals in the Free State Province of South Africa.A cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 8 hospitals (a minimum of 584 respondents in 4 intervention (347 respondents) and 4 control (237 respondents) sites) in the Free State province of South Africa will be employed to address these research questions and optimally assess the net impact of the developed interventions.Several factors favour the successful completion of the proposed research activities and the envisioned PhD, namely (1) the innovative character of the project and its solid research design (a cluster RCT), (2) the availability of sufficient VLIR-UOS funding to roll-out the proposed RCT in South Africa, (3) the stable, long-term research collaboration between the Southern and Northern partner – Prof. Edwin Wouters is officially appointed as a senior research associate of the Centre for Health Systems Research & Development in South Africa – and (4) the unique opportunity for a Belgian student to optimally capitalize on the rich dataset gathered in such a large-scale, international research project.

Keywords:HEALTH SYSTEMS RESEARCH

Disciplines:Applied sociology, Policy and administration, Social psychology, Social stratification, Social theory and sociological methods, Social work, Sociology of life course, family and health, Other sociology and anthropology