Common Ambition Bristol recruits six community members

Six people from Bristol’s Black African and Caribbean heritage communities have now been recruited to drive forward the Common Ambition Bristol project, which aims to reverse HIV health inequalities experienced by those communities living locally.

By reducing the stigma within Bristol’s African and Caribbean communities around HIV and sexual health services and improving access to sexual health services, this three-year project, which launched in February, aims to increase uptake of HIV testing. This could reduce both the transmission of HIV and the instances of late HIV diagnosis, and improve health outcomes for people who are diagnosed.

Common Ambition Bristol is supported by Bristol Health Partners’ Sexual Health Improvement Programme Health Integration Team (SHIP HIT).

The six community members, who have a variety of backgrounds, professions and experiences, will work alongside others in the project delivery group representing Brigstowe, UNITY Sexual Health, Brook and the Terrence Higgins Trust. All members of the group have completed a six-week training programme, with sessions on research, co-production and HIV awareness.

We are now searching for published data about past interventions that have aimed to increase HIV testing and reducing stigma in communities worldwide. The group will examine the projects, services, or ways of working that have been shown to be most effective elsewhere, and agree which of these should be put forward to the African and Caribbean communities in Bristol. They will then run a series of consultations with communities to obtain feedback on the proposals to make sure that the things we put in place in Bristol will be the most effective locally.