With the right tools and insights, you’ll gain the confidence to drive meaningful change, transform workplace cultures and advocate for systemic reform.
This comprehensive short course focuses on the critical issue of stigma in healthcare, offering you the tools and knowledge needed to identify, understand and address its impact. Through a mix of online modules and live lectures, you'll dive deep into the causes and consequences of stigma, exploring how it manifests in healthcare settings and influences patient care.
The course covers key questions such as why stigma exists, what drives stereotyping, how stigma affects healthcare service provision and, most importantly, how you can change a person's experience of care.
Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture
Centre for Social Research in Health
Online
07 October 2025
7 weeks
37.5 Hours
$500 - $1295
Stigma can exist at all levels within a healthcare setting, from interactions between patient and clinician to policies and procedures in health practice.Â
In this course, you’ll learn to identify stigmatising language, practices and policies, while gaining an understanding of their unintended negative consequences. By drawing on leading research and real-world patient experiences, you'll explore practical strategies and interventions proven to reduce stigma in healthcare environments. You’ll also reflect on your own workplace, considering how stigma may manifest in your practices and policies.
Through real-life examples, the course will:
By the end of the course, you’ll be equipped with the tools to influence service design, delivery and practices - helping to reduce stigma and foster positive healthcare environments for vulnerable groups.
The course will be delivered online with a combination of live sessions and self-paced modules spread across 7 weeks, inclusive of a 1-week study break.
After some theoretical grounding, participants will be encouraged to apply knowledge to their own context; reflect on what can be done and how it could work in their workplace.
The online platform will be accessible one week before the start date, providing pre-learning materials for participants to prepare ahead of the first live lecture.
Live Lecture Dates
All live lectures are scheduled from 6:00pm to 8:15pm Australian (Sydney) time, with a 15-minute break included.
*Due to the public holiday in Melbourne, this live lecture will occur on Wednesday 05 November. Â
Centre for Social Research in Health
The Centre for Social Research in Health was established in 1990. Our work makes a crucial contribution to the Australian response to blood-borne viruses and sexually transmissible infections by examining the social aspects of HIV, viral hepatitis, injecting drug use, sexual health. sexuality and education, substance use and mental health, and the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. We work closely with national and international researchers, community organisations and community advocates, and with government and state bodies (including health departments). Our work is underpinned by a core principle of engaging people with lived and living experience of the wide range of attributes, identities, conditions, and practices that we study.
Course Convenors
Loren Brener is a Professor at the Centre for Social Research in Health (CSRH). Her research focuses on stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with blood-borne viruses such as HIV and viral hepatitis and the impact of this on health outcomes and quality of care. Her research is grounded in social psychology and aims to advance theoretical understanding as well as practical outcomes for marginalised and vulnerable groups. Her research engages extensively with stakeholders and community; and she specialises in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Loren is the Deputy Director of CRSH and SPRC.
Dr Timothy Broady is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Research in Health. His current research interests include addressing stigma and discrimination amongst communities affected by blood-borne viruses, HIV prevention, and the lived experiences of marginalised groups within society. Â
Dr Alison Marshall is a Senior Lecturer and NHMRC Investigator Grant Fellow (EL1) co-appointed at the Viral Hepatitis Clinical Research Program (the Kirby Institute) and the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW Sydney. In 2018, Alison received her PhD in clinical epidemiology at the Kirby Institute. Her PhD research utilised a mixed-methods approach (quantitative-qualitative design) with a primary focus on liver disease assessment, hepatitis C treatment uptake, and health policy. Prior to her PhD, Alison’s work involved multidisciplinary collaborations with international (WHO, PAHO) and national public health agencies (PHAC, CDC) to facilitate the uptake of evidence-based research in the development of hepatitis C policy, programs, and practices in global health settings. Her most recent research is directed at investigating remaining barriers to hepatitis C care, specifically hepatitis C testing and treatment, for people who inject drugs.
Dr Lise Lafferty is a Senior Research Fellow with a co-appointment across the Centre for Social Research in Health and the Surveillance Evaluation and Research Program, The Kirby Institute. Her research interests include people who inject drugs (including those in prison and in the community), blood-borne viruses (particularly hepatitis C), sexual health, and Aboriginal health. She has a community background working with diverse disadvantaged communities including people with disabilities, young people at risk of entering the criminal justice system, and Aboriginal communities.
Dr Elena Cama is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW Sydney. She is a mixed-methods researcher with a background in criminology, social science, and public health. Her research focuses on experiences, impacts, and responses to different forms of marginalisation, discrimination, and violence. She is currently working on a national study, which aims to develop and trial a new and novel ‘universal’ stigma reduction intervention in health services.
Stigma is a social process whereby people are excluded or treated differently based on attributes, conditions, identities, and practices that are judged or viewed negatively by members of society. Stigma involves the exercise of power and control to devalue certain groups of people. Many people can experience intersecting forms of stigma, with other forms of stigma related to social identities like race, gender, sexuality, and class. Stigma can occur at multiple levels: structural (e.g., in laws, public opinion, media), organisational (e.g., through policies and practices), individual (e.g., through behaviour and language), and intrapersonal (e.g., in beliefs of self-worth). Discrimination refers to how stigma is manifested, such as through negative actions, behaviours, or speech towards people based on those attributes, conditions, identities, and practices. Stigma and discrimination have significant negative health and social impacts on affected people and communities and on costs to the health system.
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