ACBRD attend a new conference dedicated to overcoming stigma in healthcare
By Dr Eloise Litterbach and Dr Elizabeth Holmes-Truscott
Last week (21-22 November, 2024), ACBRD team members Liz Holmes-Truscott and Eloise Litterbach attended the ‘Tackling Stigma Conference‘. The event was hosted by the UNSW Sydney Centre for Social Research in Health. This new conference brought together people with a shared mission, a commitment to overcoming health stigma. Health stigma is when people are labelled, judged, and treated differently because of their health condition. Speakers and attendees were those with lived and living experience, researchers, health professionals, policy makers, and advocates from diverse backgrounds.
This conference was a chance to learn about ways to address stigma across health conditions. Presentations focused on conditions such as blood-borne viruses, mental ill health, diabetes, as well as weight bias and other forms of stigma. These conditions have different risk factors, causes, treatments, and health impacts. Yet, they often share in similar experiences and impacts of stigma. This stigma makes it more difficult to access support and healthcare, leading to worse health.
The conference featured a strong lived experience presence. Lived experience presentations were powerful and inspiring. They grounded the research evidence in real-world relevance. They also pointed out how complex stigma is, and how it can intersect with other stigmas. For example, many people face stigma due to multiple health conditions, behaviours, and/ or characteristics at the same time. Throughout the conference, there was a consistent call for action on all forms of stigma present in the health system.
On day one, keynote speakers discussed the role of power in stigma. Scientia Professor Carla Treloar (CSRH, UNSW) proposed that health services are built on assumptions that do not match lived experience and fuel stigma. Carla called for stigma to be addressed within healthcare standards and a universal approach to reducing health stigma. Carla also spoke to the power of centring lived experience in research, systems and policy to address inequalities. For example, through setting up complaint’s systems like SANE’s StigmaWatch program. We also saw first-hand the power of lived experience story telling. Caty Simon and Sara Knotts shared their work with the North Carolina Survivors Union, leading Narcofeminism Storyshare to reduce stigma.
Later, Liz and Eloise presented in a session on ‘Stigma Reducing Interventions in the Digital Age: Countering the Narrative on Stigma’. They shared early results of a diabetes stigma awareness raising campaign evaluation. Watch this space for more on that in the coming months. They also took the opportunity to share the Pledge to End Diabetes Stigma and Discrimination.
The conference shared examples of stigma awareness raising campaigns in other health conditions. Check out this clip from Casey House which aims to take down HIV stigma in healthcare.
On day two, keynote speaker Michelle Blanchard, lead of the mental health National Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Strategy, discussed stigma in policy. Michelle reflected on changes in mental health stigma over the past decade. Public attitudes are changing, yet stigmatising behaviour is still common. Michelle stressed that creating change in complex systems requires many perspectives. It takes time and patience, and must include consideration of unintended consequences.
To end the day, Liz chaired a session on Weight-Related Stigma. Presentations explored weight stigma across healthcare settings, including maternal health, dentistry, and psychology. Presenters challenged the social norms around language which fuels weight stigma. New evidence on The Obesity Collectives’ weight stigma e-module for health professionals was also presented.
Overall, the conference conveyed a clear message. To address health stigma, we need more kindness and respect for all. Further, we need to work together to address stigma across health conditions. The ACBRD look forward to reflecting on progress made towards this shared goal at future Tackling Stigma Conferences.
