A total of 982 HIV-positive people across Australia participated in the study, the fifth in a series which started in 1997. While the number of respondents was slightly down on the previous survey, researcher Jeffrey Grierson says he’s pleased with the response. “It’s pretty marvellous, given the effort required to complete the survey,” he said. “I think we get the diversity of HIV from this sample.”
While few of the study’s findings show any radical change from two years ago, there has been a small shift in treatments uptake, with a larger proportion of respondents on treatment at the time of the survey, and fewer taking treatments breaks. This finding reverses a trend seen in the last few years, where fewer positive people were taking treatments, perhaps due to concerns about side effects. Grierson said the 2005 survey participants seem to be “staying on their treatments longer and having less trouble with them.”
But while Futures 5 shows signs of increased ‘treatments optimism’ among people living with HIV, this is tempered by continuing concern about long-term toxicities. “There’s less uncertainty about the benefits of treatments … but it’s always countered by a sense of realism about the [personal] costs of treatment,” he said.
One of the most striking findings of previous Futures reports has been the high number of positive people living in poverty. There has been a slight improvement in the number living under the poverty line in 2006, to 28.3 percent, but Grierson says the change is too small to be significant.
HIV-positive Australians are also more likely to be working than they were two years ago, with fewer people on welfare and more in full-time work; however Grierson cautions that this finding needs to be seen in context – participants who’ve returned to work, or increased their working hours, often did so because of financial pressures, not solely because of improving health.
There are troubling signs about the impact of work capacity assessments for people on the Disability Support Pension. While many respondents on the DSP had undergone an assessment, only in a very small number of cases was the benefit terminated – yet the levels of personal stress caused by the assessment process were very high. “If you did a cost-benefit analysis of these assessments, they’re not actually resulting in major financial changes for Centrelink, but they’re causing a lot of stress for people with HIV,” he said.
Overall, Grierson says the picture of positive Australia painted by Futures 5, while far from rosy, is improving. People are planning further into the future, they are more likely to be stable on treatments, they have greater confidence in their treatments, and they have a decreased dependence on support services.
- The HIV Futures 5 report will be launched on October 11. Copies of the report will be available after that date from www.latrobe.edu.au/hiv-futures.
