Pills, providers and partners: Exploring trust among serodiscordant couples in Australia

This chapter draws on interviews with a diverse range of couples with mixed HIV status who took part in the qualitative YouMe&HIV study in Australia. A theme of ‘trust in medicine’ stood out across the twenty-five gay and straight relationships represented in the study. This concept has particular meanings in high income settings where there is an increasing attention being paid to preventing HIV transmission in serodiscordant couples through the use of new biomedical technologies. Our analysis found that trust in medicine revolved around trust in HIV pills, providers and partners. Running counter to the oft-cited phenomenon of a ‘decline in public trust’ in late modernity, trust emerged as a crucial element, because so much is at stake in these relationships, and because recent advances in HIV medicine open up new possibilities for these couples. We argue that itis important to take account of the lived experiences of serodiscordant couples in understanding the social dynamics of trust in advanced liberal democracies, and in developing new ways to strengthen and support trust relations among couples with mixed HIV status