Reducing BBV Harms among Professionals in the Piercing and Tattooing Industries (RHiPPT)

Many people living with Blood Borne Viruses (BBVs) report experiences of stigma and discrimination when accessing tattoo and piercing services. This ranges from outright rejection of services, to inappropriate sharing of health information; or ineffective and frequently sigmatising attempts at infection control.

The RHiPPT project aims to address BBV information and prevention need within the tattoo and beauty industry workforce, in part by seeking to pivot health protection and occupational health guidance as well as information circulated by Local Authority Licencing Offices towards targeted solutions that benefit the industry and its clients. We plan to undertake a series of connected policy research and policy influence activities:
1. Policy Review and influencing:
a. collate and synthesise current practical and policy documents relating to the industry and its governance in order to develop a policy brief to support the work of Health and Safety Executive, UKHSA and Local Authority licencing teams in relation to their support of tattooing and piercing professionals
b. liaise with Bristol Council Licencing Office team alongside Advisory Group membership and Bristol HIV Fast Track Cities steering group to identify key practice and policy gaps that this project can help to address
c. Support UKHSA to further clarify Green Book recommendations for Hep B vaccination for occupational risk groups including all occupations involved in puncturing/piercing skin
d. Identify 3-5 key cities in the UK (could focus on HIV Fast Track cities) for collaborative work and policy strategy dissemination through existing networks of local influence. Identify a lead RHiPPT partner organisation in each, to join the project Advisory Group.
e. Promote and distribute a template letter for licencing officers to share with relevant licensees regarding Equalities Act obligations in relation to health status and collection, storage and legal use of health information.

2. Influencing tattoo and piercing practitioners:
a. Identify and liaise with national and local practitioner/influencers across the tattooing and piercing industry (including: social media influencers, practitioners’ unions and industry bodies, insurers)
b. Co-design resources to influence and improve practitioner practices including:
i. Template health questionnaire for venues
ii. Training resource to support the template health questionnaire
iii. Signpost to George House Trust and HIV Confident online training and resources
iv. Signpost to national HIV and Hepatitis screening resources
v. Signpost to vaccination, needlestick injury protocols incl PEP and vaccination, local health protection teams
c. Generate discussion and promote project (and allied GHT/HIV confident) resources via Instagram posts from project account

3. Supporting people living with BBVs who seek tattoos/piercing
Co-design “Know your rights and inclusive practice” resources with support from practitioners and people living with BBVs – including Chiva’s Youth Committee members.

4. Dissemination and auditing
a. Formulate and launch a BBV inclusive policy influence toolkit for third sector, Local Authority and national policy actors, to be shared freely via the National AIDS Trust website (including resources described in 1-3 above).
b. Undertake a process evaluation of resource development and implementation, including an impact audit.

The RHiPPT project aims to improve how people working in tattoo and beauty industries learning about blood borne viruses (BBVs) and use this information in their day to day practices. Many organisations play a role in supporting these changes, including Lobal Authority Licencing teams, UK Health Security Agency and industry leaders, organisations and influencers. Our work will seek to collaborate across these key networks for change. People with lived experience should not experience stigma and rejection when accessing these types of services, and small changes to help practitioners' work more safely and with better information will help to enable inclusion.

forthcoming