Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

The exploration of how the social sciences construct of privilege in public and clinical health impacts health outcomes is unique, timely, and fills an existing knowledge gap. Privilege occurs when specific groups possess rights or gains advantage over other groups causing social inequality (Mullaly, 2010). My proposed two-part mixed-methods study aims to explore the impact of privilege on the clinical health outcomes of people living with HIV within the CANOC dataset and the creation of a community-informed plan of action on health equity for Canadians living with HIV. As a community-informed research, an advisory group with members from socially less privileged groups will be formed to provide guidance. The privileged group within the CANOC cohort has been operationalized as White MSM (WMSM) living with HIV. This categorization is based on the literature on whiteness (DiAngelo, 2012; Kwate & Goodman, 2014) and the privilege in health access and health outcomes as experienced by WMSM (Moupali, 2010; Grace, Jollimore, MacPherson, Strang, & Tan, 2018; Raboud et al., 2010). Phase 1 of the study will explore if the social science construct of "privilege" (Du Bois,1903) correlates to clinical health outcomes of people living with HIV in Canada's largest HIV cohort dataset utilizing a critical epidemiology approach (Edelman, 2018). I hypothesize that "privilege" is correlated with clinical health outcomes of Canadians living with HIV whereby less privileged groups will have poorer clinical health outcomes. Phase 2 utilizes a community-informed approach to engage key stakeholders including people living with HIV from marginalized groups in an online critical health policy roundtable to develop policy recommendations and a sustainable health equity action plan. The study's findings will produce evidence-based recommendations on how Canada can meet the global targets to end HIV through realizing health equity among the diverse communities of Canadians living with HIV.