A journey to HIV prevention research: From social psychology to social health via multidisciplinarity

Abstract

This is a personal account of my research in HIV prevention from 1984 to the present day. It demonstrates my disquiet with the individualism of psychology as a way of thinking about what was needed to prevent HIV transmission. HIV prevention requires social transformation which is produced via changes in social practices and norms of communities and networks rather than by changes in behaviours of individuals. My colleagues and I developed a ‘social health’ model of social transformation that involves enabling communities to modify their social practices by building on emergent community responses, responses that were identified by the use of a reflexive research methodology.

Keywords

AIDS community health promotion HIV prevention multidiscipline social health

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adam

(2011) Epistemic fault lines in biomedical and social approaches to HIV prevention. Journal of the International AIDS Society 14 (Suppl. 2): S2.

Australian Psychological Society (APS) College of Health Psychologists (2017) Available at: https://groups.psychology.org.au/chp/ (accessed 2 January 2017).

Bourdieu

(1979) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (trans. Nice

). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Bourdieu

(1984) An Outline of a Theory of Practice (trans. Nice

). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu

(1986) The forms of capital. In: Richardson

(ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 46–58.

Bourdieu

Wacquant

LJD

(1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Brown

(2005) Historical Note on the Archives of the Australian Psychological Society (Box 41, Series 21. Committee on the Role of Psychologists in Health and Welfare). Melbourne, VIC, Australia: University of Melbourne Archives.

Butler

(1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York; London: Routledge.

Butler

(1993) Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York, London: Routledge.

10.

Cáceres

Race

(2010) Knowledge, power and HIV/AIDS: Research and the global response. In: Aggleton

Parker

(eds) The International Handbook of Sexuality, Health and Rights, pp. 175-18. New York: Routledge.

11.

Carlson

Sheppard

(2011) Health psychology/behavioural medicine in Australia: A survey. Australian Psychologist 27(2):83–86.

12.

Chamberlain

Lyons

Stephens

(2018) Critical health psychology in New Zealand: Developments, directions and reflections. Journal of Health Psychology 23(3):457–471s.

13.

Cooper

Waldby

(2014) Clinical Labor: Tissue Donors and Research Subjects in the Bioeconomy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

14.

Crawford

Kippax

Onyx

et al . (1992) Emotion and Gender: Constructing Meaning from Memory. London: SAGE.

15.

Deutscher

(1983) Subjecting and Objecting. St. Lucia, QLD, Australia: University of Queensland Press.

16.

Durkheim

(1997) The Division of Labor in Society (trans. Halls

, Introduction Coser

Lewis A

). New York: The Free Press.

17.

Farr

(1996) The Roots of Modern Social Psychology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

18.

Fishbein

Ajzen

(1975) Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

19.

Foucault

(1973) The Birth of the Clinic (trans. Sheridan

). London: Tavistock Publications.

20.

Geertz

(1973) The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.

21.

Goffman

(1968) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Harmondsworth: Penguin Press.

22.

Goffman

(1969) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: The Penguin Press.

23.

Hagger

Luszczynska

de Wit

et al . (2016) Implementation intention and planning interventions in health psychology: Recommendations from the Synergy Expert Group for Research and Practice. Psychology & Health 31: 814–839.

24.

Haraway

(1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.

25.

Harré

(1979) Social Being: A Theory for Social Psychology.Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

26.

Harré

(1983) Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

27.

Haug

(1987) Female Sexualization: A Collective Work of Memory (trans. Carter

). London: Verso.

28.

Hovland

Janis

Kelley

(1953) Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

29.

Innes

Owen

(1980) Social and behavioural dimensions of community health: An introductory course on psychology in health care settings. Australian Psychologist 15(2): 169–180.

30.

Jun

Worth

(eds) (2010) HIV in China: Understanding the Social Aspects of the Epidemic. Sydney, NSW, Australia: UNSW Press.

31.

Katz

(1973) The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-to-Date Report of an Hypothesis. Marketing Classics Press, pp. 175–193.

32.

Katz

Lazarsfeld

(1955) Personal Influence. New York: The Free Press.

33.

Kelly

St Lawrence

Diaz

et al . (1991) HIV risk behavior reduction following intervention with key opinion leaders of population: An experimental analysis. American Journal of Public Health 81(2): 168–171.

34.

Kippax

(2006) A public health dilemma: A testing question. AIDS Care 18: 230–235.

35.

Kippax

(2008) Understanding and integrating the structural and biomedical determinants of HIV-infection: A way forward for prevention. Current Opinion in HIV and AIDS 3: 489–494.

36.

Kippax

(2012) Effective HIV-prevention: The indispensable role of social science. Journal of the International AIDS Society 15: 17357.

37.

Kippax

Crawford

(1993) Flaws in the theory of reasoned action. In: Terry

Gallois

McCamish

(eds) The Theory of Reasoned Action: Its Applications to AIDS-Preventive Behaviour. Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 253–269

38.

Kippax

Kinder

(2002) Reflexive practice: The relationship between social research and health promotion in HIV prevention. Sex Education 2: 91–104.

39.

Kippax

Murray

(1979) Small Screen, Big Business: The Great Australian Television Robbery. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Angus & Robertson.

40.

Kippax

Race

(2003) Sustaining safe practice: Twenty years on. Social Science & Medicine 57: 1–12.

41.

Kippax

Stephenson

(2012) Beyond the distinction between biomedical and social dimensions of HIV: Prevention through the lens of a social public health. American Journal of Public Health 102(5): 789–799.

42.

Kippax

Stephenson

(2016) Socialising the Biomedical Turn in HIV Prevention. London; New York: Anthem Press.

43.

Kippax

Connell

Dowsett

et al . (1993) Sustaining Safe Sex: Gay Communities Respond to AIDS. London: Falmer Press.

44.

Kippax

Crawford

Benton

et al . (1988) Constructing emotions: Weaving meaning from memories. British Journal of Social Psychology 27: 19-33.

45.

Kippax

Stephenson

Parker

et al . (2013) Between agency and structure in HIV prevention: Understanding the middle ground of social practice. American Journal of Public Health 103(8): 1367–1375.

46.

Lazarsfeld

Berelson

Gaudet

(1944) The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York: Columbia University Press.

47.

Lewin

(1951) Field Theory in Social Science (edited by D Cartwright ). New York: Harper & Brothers.

48.

Lubek

Ghabrial

Ennis

et al . (2018) Notes on the development of health psychology and behavioral medicine in the United States. Journal of Health Psychology 23(3):492–505.

49.

Mead

(1934) Mind, Self, & Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (ed Morris

). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

50.

Mindel

Kippax

(2013) A national strategic approach to improving the health of gay and bisexual men: Experience in Australia. In: Aral

Fenton

Lipshutz

(eds) The New Public Health and STD/HIV Prevention: Personal, Public and Health System Approaches. New York: Springer, pp. 339–360.

51.

Murray

Kippax

(1981) Television’s impact on children and adults: International perspectives on theory and research in mass communications. In: Cleveland Wilhoit

de Bock

(eds) Mass Communication Review Year Book. Sage & Jersey Bass: Vol. 2. pp. 582–638 (Reprinted from advances in experimental social psychology, 1979).

52.

Murray

(2018) The pre-history of health psychology in the United Kingdom: From natural science and psychoanalysis to social science, social cognition and beyond. Journal of Health Psychology 23(3): 472–492.

53.

Oldenberg

Owen

(1990) Health psychology in Australia. Psychology & Health 4(1): 73–81.

54.

Putnam

(2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

55.

Race

(2008) Moving science: Susan Kippax and the politics of knowledge. Australian Feminist Studies 23: 543–548.

56.

Race

(2009) Pleasure Consuming Medicine: The Queer Politics of Drugs. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

57.

Race

(2012) Framing responsibility: HIV, biomedical research and the performativity of the law. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 9: 327–338.

58.

Richters

Rissel

(2005) Doing it Down Under: The Sexual Lives of Australians. Crows Nest, QLD, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

59.

Roberts

(2015) Puberty in Crisis: The Sociology of Early Sexual Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

60.

Rosengarten

(2009) HIV Interventions: Biomedicine and the Traffic between Information and Flesh. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

61.

Shotter

(1984) Social Accountability and Selfhood. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

62.

Stephenson

Kippax

(1999) Minding the gap: Subjectivity and sexuality research. In: Maiers

Bayer

Esgahaldo

Duarte

et al (eds) Challenges to Theoretical Psychology. North York, ON, Canada: Captus Press, pp. 383–400.

63.

Stephenson

Papadopoulos

(2006) Analysing Everyday, Experience: Social Research and Political Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

64.

The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) (2017a) Special interest groups sections and thematic groups. Available at: https://www.tasa.prg.au/about-tasa/tasa-history/special-interst-groups-sections-and-thematic-groups/ (accessed 2 January 2017).

65.

The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) (2017b) TASA history: A brief history of the Australian Sociological Association. Available at: https://www.tasa.org.au/about-tasa/tasa-history/

66.

Thomas-Slayter

Fisher

(2011) Social capital and AIDS-resilient communities: Strengthening the AIDS response. Global Public Health 6 (Suppl. 3): S323–S343.

67.

Vico

(2002) The First New Science (trans. Pompa

). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

68.

Waldby

(1996) AIDS and the Body Politic: Biomedicine and Sexual Difference. Routledge: New York.

69.

Winkler

Janes

Fatovich

et al . (1980) Self-Care for Migraine and Tension Headaches: A Multi-Model Approach in the Prevention and Control of Headache Pain. Nedlands, WA, Australia: Clinical Unit of the Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia.