Although the HIV epidemic is widely recognized as one of the world’s largest public health crises, its effects on the health sector’s work environment and role in the global health worker shortage are often overlooked. HIV places great burdens on health systems to provide treatment and prevention, taxing critically low numbers of health workers—a population also reduced by HIV and AIDS—and introducing new workplace challenges related to occupational health and safety, stigma, and discrimination.

CapacityPlus, the USAID-funded, IntraHealth-led global project to strengthen human resources for health, now collaborates with the Positive Practice Environment (PPE) Campaign. This initiative supports settings that ensure the health, safety, and personal well-being of staff; improve the motivation, productivity, and performance of individuals and organizations; and thus support the provision of quality patient care. The PPE is a consortium consisting of the International Council of Nurses, International Pharmaceutical Federation, World Confederation for Physical Therapy, World Dental Federation, World Medical Association, and the International Hospital Federation.

Using the PPE framework, CapacityPlus addresses HIV as a work climate issue. The project will undertake workplace improvement initiatives that emphasize the importance of infection prevention protocols, safe work practices, and programs to address stigma and discrimination against HIV-positive caregivers in order to create environments conducive to health worker retention and quality patient care.