Welcome to the INHSU Prisons Hepatitis C Advocacy Toolkit

Are you an advocate for
hepatitis C elimination in prisons?

This toolkit provides guidance across three core areas that will support your advocacy efforts for the scale-up or implementation of prison-based hepatitis C testing, treatment and prevention services:

  1. Advocacy planning – how will you plan and run your advocacy activities?
  2. Hepatitis C information and education – how will you ensure your stakeholders appreciate the need for testing, treatment and prevention services for hepatitis C in prisons?
  3. Prison-based hepatitis C care advocacy – how will you respond to the unique challenges of advocating for the implementation and scale up of hepatitis C services in prisons?

Whether you’re new to advocacy or looking for resources – so you don’t have to start from scratch – this is your one-stop-shop for tools. 

Begin your journey and find the information resources suited to you below.

 

I am…

New to Advocacy

Begin here

I want a…

Deep Dive into hepatitis C testing, treatment and prevention services in prisons

Explore here

I want to…

Learn more about advocating for hepatitis C elimination in prisons

Learn here

I just need…
 Advocacy Resources

Access here

Why is this important?

Stigma is such a big issue for people with hepatitis C, and it’s much more acute in the prison sector. So that’s a barrier for people coming forward for treatment. And there are definitely people who will decline a test because they don’t want to be stigmatised. 

Interviewee, United Kingdom 

The knowledge gap is a big issue in our country […] Even when you talk to the doctors who work in the prisons, they know very little about hepatitis […] which is why we need education first, because not so many people who provide healthcare in our prisons are aware about the management and treatment for viral hepatitis.

Interviewee, Kenya 

For the purpose of advocacy, we need success stories to share with our decision makers. And the lessons that have been learned must also be shared with the policymakers and the political leaders, so that they will make this disease, this public health issue, a priority for their agenda.

Interviewee, Pakistan 

About these resources

This toolkit has been developed by INHSU Prisons, a Special Interest Group of the International Network on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users, in collaboration with global stakeholders. To find out more about the development of the toolkit, click here.