as well as community health and well-being
Analytic Note: Stigma and discrimination severely hampers the fight against the spread of HIV. This review article identifies stigma-reduction strategies and interventions in the field of HIV/AIDS, mental illness, leprosy, TB and epilepsy. Due to copyright restrictions, only the abstract of the article was read. However, in the abstract the authors briefly argue for a patient-centered approach in order to empower affected persons and develop interventions to reduce stigma and discrimination at other levels.
Source Excerpt: In many health conditions, people are severely affected by health-related stigma and discrimination. A literature review was conducted to identify stigma-reduction strategies and interventions in the field of HIV/AIDS, mental illness, leprosy, TB and epilepsy. The review identified several levels at which interventions and strategies are being implemented. These are the intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational/institutional, community and governmental/structural level. Although a lot of work has been carried out on stigma and stigma reduction, far less work has been done on assessing the effectiveness of stigma-reduction strategies. The effective strategies identified mainly concentrated on the individual and the community level. In order to reduce health-related stigma and discrimination significantly, single-level and single-target group approaches are not enough. What is required is a patient-centred approach, which starts with interventions targeting the intrapersonal level, to empower affected persons to assist in the development and implementation of stigma-reduction programmes at other levels.
Full Citation: Heijnders, M. & Van Der Meij, S. (2006) The fight against stigma: an overview of stigma-reduction strategies and interventions. Psychology, Health & Medicine 11(3), 353–363. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548500600595327