The first major piece of work by Health+Law is our Legal Needs Study (LeNS). This is a legal needs survey, a form of legal research that helps us to understand people’s experiences of justiciable issues – everyday issues that could have a legal solution, regardless of whether a legal solution is sought. Justiciable issues can arise in all areas of life, for example in housing, employment, relationships and finances. A legal need occurs when a justiciable issue requires legal support to be dealt with appropriately and effectively.

For the past few years, migration law has attracted increasing attention in the field of blood-borne virus advocacy. According to the World Health Organisation, about 1 in 8 of the global population is a migrant, and evidence shows that HIV is more prevalent among migrant populations than those residing in their country of birth.

Since October 2017, New South Wales law has required people living with a sexually transmitted infection to take ‘reasonable precautions’ against further transmission. This requirement was the result of an amendment to the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW), which had previously stated that a person living with an STI must disclose their status to any potential sexual partner.

In an earlier blog post, we discussed one of Health+Law Lead CI Dr David Carter’s presentations at ASHM’s Joint HIV & AIDS and Sexual Health Conferences last year, about the migration-related legal needs of people living with HIV (PLHIV). Today we’re looking at his second presentation, which went into more detail about how exactly we should go about understanding and responding to those needs.

This month we delivered a presentation to the National Hepatitis Infoline Working Group on the Health+Law project. As part of the presentation, Rhys Evans, Research Assistant and PhD candidate, provided the Working Group with a detailed explanation of the term ‘legal need’, drawing on work by Health+Law Chief Investigator Anthea Vogl. Given that this is essential context for our project, particularly in our Legal Needs Study (LeNS), we want to share Anthea and Rhys’s insights here on our blog.

At ASHM’s Joint HIV & AIDS and Sexual Health Conferences 2022, held on the Sunshine Coast, Health+Law Chief Investigator Dr David Carter delivered a presentation on our project’s introductory research into the relentless harms inflicted on people living with HIV (PLHIV) by Australia’s migration system.

For several years, we have known that the migration process is one of the major legal issues causing harm to people living with HIV and Hepatitis B in Australia. But what exactly does that migration process look like, and what can clinicians do to support better migration outcomes for their patients?

At Health+Law, the ‘legal environment’ we are concerned with refers to all laws and regulations that affect the lives of people living with Hepatitis B or HIV in Australia as a result of their condition – which is to say, Australian laws and regulations related to public health generally and blood-borne viruses (BBVs) specifically.

Health+Law is a project to seek out and eliminate the legal issues causing harm to people living with HIV and Hepatitis B in Australia. As we get started with this necessary and long-overdue work, we want to communicate what makes it so important.