Understanding the spatial and contextual inequities of health access and use by people living with or vulnerable to HIV in British Columbia

Access to health care services is critical to improving the health and well-being of people living with or vulnerable to HIV. Factors such as density of services or neighbourhood violence play a substantial role as barriers or facilitators to health care access in broader populations, but limited research is available to show that this is also true for people living with or vulnerable to HIV. This study will investigate, within BC:

1. The distribution of access and use of health services, especially health services in HIV testing and treatment.
2. The barriers and facilitators related to access.
3. How to develop a rigorous methodology to capture, quantify and analyze data on access and use of health services.

The proposal will draw data from several large, multi-year studies conducted by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and will link to external datasets for the development of key measures. This project will focus on analyzing data regarding health care services utilization across different regions in BC over time. The proposal aims to improve access to services for earlier diagnosis and improved treatment for people living with HIV.