Everywhere in Japan: An international approach to working with commercial gay businesses in HIV prevention

In the UK and Japan, there is concern regarding rising rates of annual new HIV infections among Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). Whilst in the UK and Europe, gay businesses are increasingly recognized as being important settings through which to deliver HIV prevention and health promotion interventions to target vulnerable populations; in Japan such settings-based approaches are relatively underdeveloped. This article draws on qualitative data from a recently completed study conducted to explore whether it is feasible, acceptable and desirable to build on the recent European Everywhere project for adaptation and implementation in Japan. A series of expert workshops were conducted in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka with intersectoral representatives from Japanese and UK non-governmental organizations (NGOs), gay businesses, universities and gay communities (n = 46). Further discussion groups and meetings were held with NGO members and researchers from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Research Group on HIV Prevention Policy, Programme Implementation and Evaluation among MSM (n = 34). The results showed that it is desirable, feasible and acceptable to adapt and implement a Japanese version of Everywhere. Such a practical, policy-relevant, settings-based HIV prevention framework for gay businesses may help to facilitate the necessary scale up of prevention responses among MSM in Japan. Given the high degree of sexual mobility between countries in Asia, there is considerable potential for the Everywhere Project (or its Japanese variant) to be expanded and adapted to other countries within the Asia-Pacific region

Everywhere in Japan: an international approach to working with commercial gay businesses in HIV prevention

Summary In the UK and Japan, there is concern regarding rising rates of annual new HIV infections among Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). Whilst in the UK and Europe, gay businesses are increasingly recognized as being important settings through which to deliver HIV prevention and health promotion interventions to target vulnerable populations; in Japan such settings-based approaches are relatively underdeveloped. This article draws on qualitative data from a recently completed study conducted to explore whether it is feasible, acceptable and desirable to build on the recent European Everywhere project for adaptation and implementation in Japan. A series of expert workshops were conducted in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka with intersectoral representatives from Japanese and UK non-governmental organizations (NGOs), gay businesses, universities and gay communities (n = 46). Further discussion groups and meetings were held with NGO members and researchers from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Research Group on HIV Prevention Policy, Programme Implementation and Evaluation among MSM (n = 34). The results showed that it is desirable, feasible and acceptable to adapt and implement a Japanese version of Everywhere. Such a practical, policy-relevant, settingsbased HIV prevention framework for gay businesses may help to facilitate the necessary scale up of prevention responses among MSM in Japan. Given the high degree of sexual mobility between countries in Asia, there is considerable potential for the Everywhere Project (or its Japanese variant) to be expanded and adapted to other countries within the Asia-Pacific region

Nursing spirituality.

Has mind-body spirituality become a significant resource within the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK? And, to the extent that it is a growing presence, how is this to be explained? This paper looks at the expansion of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the NHS, and explores its connection to spirituality. In addition, the effects on healthcare professionals are examined, concentrating on the example of nursing. To introduce the argument, cultural factors, influencing nurses and patients, work together with policy directives to ensure that mind-body spirituality is an attractive way of articulating the value the NHS attaches to the patient-centred, the whole person and spirituality.1 To pave the way, I first provide a brief summary of a recently completed research project - a project that helps explain my interest in developments within the NHS, the approach adopted in this article, and - critically - what is meant by holistic mind-body spirituality. The research by the author and his colleague (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005) was reviewed in Volume 6, No. 3 of Spirituality and Health International