China - 2009

In China, the Stigma Index is being implemented and coordinated by the Marie Stopes Positive Talks Project network. Other networks of people living with HIV, working with specific target groups such as women, minorities and rural residents, have also been invited to help rollout the initiative and reach out to diverse groups of people living with HIV to respond to the questionnaire. The China Central Party School has been our core partner for providing technical support, and the team hopes that their involvement will facilitate advocacy with the Government.

Overall, the team working with the index in China hopes that by sharing the index findings with a wide cross sector of society, more people will pay attention to the rights of people living with HIV and get involved in advocacy activities. For organisations and institutes already involved in advocacy, it is expected that the index findings will provide the evidence needed to conduct more targeted campaigns to improve the effectiveness of efforts to address stigma.

Key achievements to date in 2009 include:

  • 2200 questionnaires distributed and majority of them completed
  • Development and distribution of Stigma Index toolkits including the localized questionnaires, investigator's guidebook, in-depth interview outline, quality-control checklist, and the questionnaires distribution table
  • Training and capacity development of 30 researchers

 

Some of the main challenges so far have been time to administer large number of questionnaires within a limited amount of time across China while ensuring that different groups have been properly represented. It has also been a challenge to reach certain vulnerable groups such as people who use drugs and sex workers in particular. To overcome this, the team invited volunteers and networks to help with the administration of the questionnaires and has cooperated with local Centres for Disease Control (CDCs), hospitals, clinics, entertainment establishments to improve their outreach to these groups.

The initial results will be out by the end of June 2009, which will then be reviewed and validated by the field investigators. The finalized result will be available in late July 2009.

In the future, the team in China hopes that this kind of index will be repeated every few years so that we can monitor and analyse the changing situation of the Chinese attitudes towards HIV and towards people living with HIV.