What will it take to achieve the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women living with HIV?

This article outlines progress in realizing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls living with HIV over the last 30 years from the perspective of women living with HIV. It argues that the HIV response needs to go beyond the bio-medical aspects of HIV to achieve our sexual and reproductive health and rights, and considers relevant Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), World Health Organization, United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Global Fund and other guidelines, what engagement there has been with women living with HIV and whether guidelines/strategies have been adopted. It has been written by women living with HIV from around the world and a few key supporters. Co-authors have sought to collate and cite materials produced by women living with HIV from around the world, in the first known effort to date to do this, as a convergence of evidence to substantiate the points made in the article. However, as the article also argues, research led by women living with HIV is seldom funded and rarely accepted as evidence. Combined with a lack of meaningful involvement of women living with HIV in others' research on us, this means that formally recognized evidence from women's own perspectives is patchy at best. The article argues that this research gap, combined with the ongoing primacy of conventional research methods and topics that exclude those most affected by issues, and the lack of political will (and sometimes outright opposition) in relation to gender equality and human rights, adversely affect policies and programmes in relation to women's rights. Thus, efforts to achieve an ethical, effective and sustainable response to the pandemic are hindered. The article concludes with a call to action to all key stakeholders.

What Does "Good" Community and Public Engagement Look Like? Developing Relationships With Community Members in Global Health Research.

Community and public engagement (CPE) is increasingly becoming a key component in global health research. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is one of the leading funders in the UK of global health research and requires a robust CPE element in the research it funds, along with CPE monitoring and evaluation. But what does "good" CPE look like? And what factors facilitate or inhibit good CPE? Addressing these questions would help ensure clarity of expectations of award holders, and inform effective monitoring frameworks and the development of guidance. The work reported upon here builds on existing guidance and is a first step in trying to identify the key components of what "good" CPE looks like, which can be used for all approaches to global health research and in a range of different settings and contexts. This article draws on data collected as part of an evaluation of CPE by 53 NIHR-funded award holders to provide insights on CPE practice in global health research. This data was then debated, developed and refined by a group of researchers, CPE specialists and public contributors to explore what "good" CPE looks like, and the barriers and facilitators to good CPE. A key finding was the importance, for some research, of investing in and developing long term relationships with communities, perhaps beyond the life cycle of a project; this was regarded as crucial to the development of trust, addressing power differentials and ensuring the legacy of the research was of benefit to the community.