We need to have some behavioural data about stigma. There hasn't been that much behavioural research done for stigma for HIV. We are desperately looking for funds to be able to research behaviour, because we find that the key to any decrease in stigma or behaviour is through behavioural science. That's what we're looking for.
The stigma associated with it is that when we go to multi-windows of health providers, we get stigma repeatedly, at one window after another. We have people in the Maritimes who are not even getting tested for HIV because they live in a rural community, and they don't access care because it's their cousin who is behind the pharmacy window giving them their meds. That's the reality we live in Canada in rural settings. It's also in cities like Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. The stigma is everywhere. We encounter it in the workforce. We encounter it when we go for our groceries. It's in everything.
The stigma has to be addressed globally, really, but we also have to address self-stigmatization first, when somebody is first diagnosed with HIV. I think that's another key where we have to develop more behavioural research in order to understand first why people are self-stigmatizing themselves, so that they can face stigma, then, as they go through life.