Health for All - Advocating for people who use alcohol and other drugs

Venue: The Spring Street Conference Centre

The "Health for All" VAADA Conference has three broad objectives:

• To identify current issues in relation to health inequality (in particular, inequitable access to universal health care) for people experiencing problematic alcohol & other drug use.
• To explore strategies for addressing health inequality for people with AOD issues.
• To examine the current innovative strategies that are being explored in responding to the health needs of people who use alcohol & other drugs.

A holistic or 'whole person' approach will be taken, looking at the mental, physical, social and general health issues experienced by people who use alcohol and other drugs.

A key challenge for both consumers and practitioners of the alcohol and other drug sector is the issue of equitable access to healthcare. Issues of stigma and discrimination are significant for people who are currently addressing their drug use or who have a history of drug use. This stigma often contributes to inaccurate perceptions of how people who use alcohol and other drugs will behave and respond to health professionals - and also to perceptions of the degree to which drug users are 'deserving' of equitable healthcare.

Good healthcare is critical to preventing chronic disease and health issues related to problematic drug use.

Our overarching goal is to raise awareness of this issue and to work towards decreasing health inequality for this particular population group.

Registration forms, the conference program and additional information about the conference can be found at our conference website: