Everybody Hates Me: Let's Talk About Stigma

Dr. Charlotte Loppie is a Mi’kmaq/French Acadian scholar. She is a Professor in the School of Public Health and Social Policy and the Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Human and Social Development. Dr. Loppie’s guiding principle is to be of service to Indigenous communities, collectives and organizations. To that end, she has made it her life’s work to bring Indigenous peoples into research projects that touch their lives.

We discuss the fallacy of racial categories and hierarchies underpinning colonization and slavery. Charlotte describes the structural roots of racism  embedded in ideologies of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy. Racism produces toxic environments of life threatening acute and chronic stress. Self reflection on social location, privilege, and whose land one is living on, can start raising awareness of the roots of racism.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs. 

Dr. Ina Park is an associate professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, Medical Consultant at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of STD Prevention, and Medical Director of the California Prevention Training Center. Check out her new book Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs to learn the untold stories of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). You can follow her on Twitter.

Inspired by her 7 year old son's candid conversations, Ina embarks on a mission with her new book to normalize talking about sex and STIs. Ina talks about the importance of moving beyond beyond the fear of stigma and STIs to make it easier to take care of our sexual health. We talk about how common STIs are, how stigma produces feelings of shame, and how stigma varies by STI diagnosis. We also discuss sexual networks in local bars, how television perpetuates stigma towards herpes (hello The Bachelor!), and how our reactions to STI disclosure can be part of the solution. 

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs. 

Gareth Henry is the Executive Director of the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP) with leadership roles in the non-profit and HIV sectors for almost twenty years. He has worked at Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), The 519 Church Street Community Centre and the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation (PWA). Gareth has also served as Board Chair at Africans in Partnership Against AIDS (APAA) for more than six years. He also volunteers with Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian nonprofit that helps relocate LGBTQ people who face danger and oppression around the world. You can learn more about  Gareth here and follow Black CAP on twitter here.

We talk about how stigma prevents people from living life freely and being their authentic self. People often suffer in silence from stigma, and can feel isolated. We discuss the importance of finding information on HIV (it is out there!) to move beyond fear, and practising kindness and compassion. Gareth talks about living his life openly with HIV to challenge stigma. He discusses how stigma robs people of the opportunity to take care of each other, and forces people into a box. Solutions lie in lifting each other up and seeing one another's humanity.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs. 

Dr. Marija Pantelic is a Lecturer in Public Health at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). Marija is an associate member of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Oxford University; member of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the AIDS Impact Conference; and member of the Technical Working Group of the Global Partnership for Action to Eliminate HIV-related Stigma and Discrimination. Marija is passionate about maximising the utility of research for evidence-based practice and is lucky to work closely with public health and human rights advocates from across the world. Follow her on Twitter here.

We talk about stigma as a way to maintain power and the status quo, and the need to move beyond information as an answer to stigma. We discuss radical kindness and imagining that any person you may be talking about is in the room with you. Marija also discusses solutions to stigma lying in structural empowerment and communities being at the centre of leading change. 

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs. 

Marvelous Muchenje is a PhD student at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto and the Manager, Community Relations and Communications  at ViiV Healthcare Canada. With a professional and activist background in sexual and reproductive rights, Marvelous is passionate about seeking social justice in all its forms by changing systems of oppression through collective action. An affirming HIV-positive Black woman, Marvelous has made it her mission to spread love and empowerment. She is a writer, motivational speaker and advocate for marginalized communities. Marvelous sits on several national boards with a global reach, which she uses to uplift the narratives of those who face injustice. She believes that justice must be intersectional and inclusive in order to improve the quality of life for all. You can follow Marvelous on twitter here and learn more about her research here.

We talk about how HIV stigma shows up in families, healthcare, employment, legal systems, and ultimately impacts community and self-acceptance of people living with HIV. Marvelous shares how HIV stigma intersects with stigma toward sex, immigrants, and other social identities. We discuss the many things that people can do to challenge HIV stigma in their own relationships, communities, and workplaces. Marvelous leaves us with this question about HIV stigma: (A.I.D.S.) Am I Doing Something?

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs. 

Dr. Judith Auerbach is an independent science, policy consultant, and Professor in the School of Medicine at UCSF. She recently served as Vice President, Research & Evaluation at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, where she was responsible for developing, leading, and managing research and evaluation-related activities.  Dr. Auerbach  has taught, presented, and published widely in the areas of HIV/AIDS, social science and public policy, and sex and gender. You can find more about her research here.

In this podcast we talk about disciplinary stigma toward the social sciences in health research, and the ways that not giving social scientists a seat at the table can result in lower uptake of health advances, including  vaccines. We discuss how social sciences can increase our understanding of where a health issue sits in someone's life, inequitable social arrangements, and unintended consequences of health interventions. Listening and opening our heart and minds to socially marginalized persons' viewpoints, and examining how inequities are operationalized at institutional levels, can inform our actions to make change.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs. 

Dr. Emily Mendenhall is the Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Her books, Rethinking Diabetes: Entanglements with Trauma, Poverty, and HIV (2019, Cornell) and Syndemic Suffering: Social Distress, Depression, and Diabetes among Mexican Immigrant Women (2012, Routledge), have received wide acclaim. You can learn more about her work here and here, read her COVID-19 Vox article here, and follow her on Twitter.

In this podcast Dr. Mendenhall discusses the concept of syndemics, referring to the clustering of social and health problems, with examples from her global research that explores diabetes, HIV, violence, depression and trauma. She describes the way that stigma can be linked with multiple health conditions, how stigma differs by gender and between global contexts, and the many ways we can work together to create social change.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Dr. Bernice A. Pescosolido is distinguished professor of Sociology at Indiana University and director of the Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research. Pescosolido's research agenda addresses how social networks connect individuals to their communities and to institutional structures, providing the "wires" through which peoples attitudes and actions are influenced. This agenda encompasses three basic areas: health care services, stigma, and suicide research. You can learn more about her research here and follow her on twitter here.

In this episode we discuss how stigma contributes to the rejection of people with mental health issues in society, workplaces, healthcare, and interpersonal relationships. Increasing society's mental health literacy does not necessarily reduce stigma toward mental illness as this stigma is often rooted in fear produced by incorrect stereotypes of dangerousness. While  stigma toward depression is reducing, it may in fact be getting worse toward people with schizophrenia. Dr. Pescosolido talks about the importance of seeing persons' full humanity, putting more resources into mental health, and the need for inclusion. Recognizing and celebrating our connectedness and what each person has to contribute  will help us to find a place for everyone.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Epidemiologist, physician and public health expert Dr. Mark Tyndall has dedicated his career to studying HIV, poverty, and drug use in multiple places around the world, starting with Nairobi, and now in Vancouver. An early advocate for harm reduction programs, Mark was at the forefront of North America’s first legally sanctioned supervised injection facility, INSITE, established in Vancouver in 2003. A proponent of evidence-based public health policy and interventions,  Mark's work advocates for a safer drug supply including through the MySafe opiod vending machine. You can learn more about his work here and follow Mark on twitter here.

We talk about the stigma toward people using drugs that is built into the legal and healthcare systems, including the lack of trust and autonomy for people accessing prescription hydromorphone. We talk about the harms of prohibition and how this approach fuels the overdose crisis.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Dr. Millicent Atujuna is a sociologist/population scientist with a focus on issues relating to social and behavioral aspects of health. Currently working as a social behavioral scientist at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, Millicent’s current research interests are on understanding the macro and micro factors that drive health-seeking behavior as well as understanding how individuals negotiate such dynamics. Millicent also has a particular interest in issues relating to adolescent health and wellbeing.

On today's special World AIDS Day episode, we join Millicent, colleagues and young people living with HIV at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation to learn about why stigma matters for youth living with HIV in South Africa, and how we can challenge this stigma. You can follow  the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation here and learn more about Millicent's research here.