Locating Power in a Cross-Sectoral Health Promotion Collaboration Addressing HIV and Hepatitis C

Power is central to understanding how health promotion networks and collaborations function. Power underpins the relational connectivity, yet its complexity renders it difficult to define. This study explores how power is understood within a health promotion network addressing HIV and Hepatitis C in Victoria, Australia.

Inductive interviews were conducted with 30 senior organisational members working in the HIV and Hepatitis C health sector in Victoria, Australia. Participating organisations included community, research, government and health organisations. Interviews were coded in NVivo using an inductive approach, underpinned by a phenomenological framework.

Five themes were identified: multiple dimensions of funding; collaboration and relationships as power; organisations as champions or gatekeepers; the role of evidence in defining the sector; and the role of advocacy in the sector. The different and recognised power mechanisms, through which each part of the sector could have influence, were a valued characteristic of the response.

The Victorian HIV and HCV network provides a useful insight into the multiple forms of power within a health promotion network, and how these forms of power helped balance aspects of the power asymmetries in the network. This research indicates the need to consider power in multiple, potentially balancing dimensions when developing policies to strengthen collaborative health promotion practice. SO WHAT?: Understanding the value of multiple forms of power within long-term networks may help strengthen cultures, values, and policies that ensure power dynamics enhance, rather than limit, collaborative practice.