It's Your Right - implementation and outcomes of a co-designed national Australian hepatitis C health promotion...

In 2022, an estimated 74,400 people in Australia were living with hepatitis C. Despite an initial rapid uptake of direct acting antiviral treatment after their approval for use in Australia in 2016, national hepatitis C testing and treatment rates have declined since 2019. In response, It's Your Right, a national health promotion campaign co-designed with and for people with lived-living experience of injecting drug use and/or hepatitis C, was implemented in all Australian states and territories in 2022. This article presents outcomes of the campaign.

A mixed methods evaluation was co-designed with peer workers from peer-led drug user organisations and community-based hepatitis organisations. Campaign outcomes included analysis of social marketing reach data, hepatitis C testing and treatment data, and client survey.

It's Your Right demonstrated wide reach with >8.9 million people seeing the campaign. The campaign was memorable - 53 % of clients from the implementing organisations who were surveyed demonstrated unprompted campaign recall, while 72 % remembered the campaign when prompted. Implementing organisations documented 2595 conversations about hepatitis C with clients, conducted 1343 hepatitis C tests, referred 151 people for treatment, and utilised 1254 incentives to engage clients in hepatitis C care during the campaign period. Thirty-eight percent of survey participants spoke to a peer worker, and 31 % accessed testing, due to seeing the campaign.

It's Your Right was highly valued by implementing organisations and reached people in the community who inject drugs. The campaign inspired people to seek out support from peer workers and take up hepatitis C testing.