Vicky Bungay, PhD, RN | School of Nursing

Professor; Associate Director, Research

Canada Research Chair Tier II: Gender, Equity and Community Engagement

111 - 2176 Health Sciences Mall
Vancouver BC Canada V6T 1Z3

Dr. Bungay’s research focuses on addressing inequities that negatively affect people’s health and well-being including the devastating effects of stigma, discrimination, and violence. She explores how research partnerships can positively impact communities that are excluded in health and social policy; programming that affects their lives; and how community-based interventions support real world evidence.

Profile

Research

Research Interests

Dr. Bungay’s research integrates health and social science perspectives in the substantive field of redressing the negative health effects of socio-economic and political inequities (i.e., marginalization) on some of the most stigmatized groups in society. Dr. Bungay's work focuses on addressing inequities that negatively affect people’s health and well-being including the devastating effects of stigma, discrimination and violence. She is interested in how research partnerships can positively impact communities that are regularly excluded in health and social policy and programming that affect their lives and how community-based interventions support real world evidence. Her current research and partnerships are tackling such issues as gender–based violence and equity oriented care, brining together concepts of intersectionality and implementation science with mixed-methods and case-based intervention designs. She engages in this work by actively collaborating and co-learning with multiple stakeholders including people deeply affected by inequities, and not-for-profit and public service sectors.

Current Projects

Scaling Up Trauma and Violence Informed Outreach with Women Affected by Violence

Scaling Up is seven-year research project that builds on the findings from the pilot project, STRENGTH. It employs case-based methodology and mixed methods to study the implementation, testing, and refinement of a community-led, strengths-based, and trauma and violence informed outreach intervention to support highly marginalized individuals who experience interpersonal and structural gender-based violence. The research team comprises researchers and community organizations across diverse urban contexts who support and advocate for those affected by gender-based violence within their local communities (Vancouver, Windsor, Kelowna, and Halifax) to understand their priority service needs, and to identify evidence-informed best practices for fostering / improving access to and receipt of services. In doing so, we study the effectiveness of the outreach intervention in supporting them to achieve self-identified priorities as well as the process for building and sustaining effective academic-community-public service partnerships.

PI: Vicky Bungay
Years: 2019 - 2026
Funders: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Anonymous Donors
For more information about this project, please click here.

STRENGTH DTES comprises two key projects:

Promoting access to care for women affected by intimate partner violence in the DTES
Partnerships for Trauma and Violence Informed Outreach: New Strategies to Service Delivery to Redress Violence Against Women

The STRENGTH Pilot Study is a three-year, community-based, participatory action research project to design a women-led, strengths-based, and trauma-informed model of outreach situated in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood of Vancouver, BC. The project is led by a team of researchers, health and social service leaders and staff, and experiential experts (i.e., women from within the DTES community), and aims to reduce barriers and promote access to support services for women affected by interpersonal and systemic violence. The outreach teams – comprised of Community Health Workers (i.e., individuals with lived experience in the community) and non-experiential outreach workers – worked to build trust and lasting relationships with self-identifying women, promoted autonomy through working with women to identify their goals and needs, and supported women to engage with services and supports to address their priorities.

Co-PIs: Vicky Bungay, Linda Dewar (Inner-City Women’s Initiatives Society)
Years: 2018 - 2020
Funders: Vancouver Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
For more information about this project, please click here.

EQUIP Emergency

Emergency Departments (EDs) in Canada often operate over-capacity and are under significant pressures, leading to the rationing of care. In this type of environment, particular groups of people experience inadequate and inequitable treatment, including Indigenous people, racialized newcomers, people experiencing mental health challenges and/or use substances, those living in unstable housing, people experiencing interpersonal violence, and those engaged in the sex work industry. Employing a tri-partite partnership model encompassing Indigenous leaders, ED leaders and staff, and researchers, EQUIP is a five-year research program that studies the feasibility, process, and impact of implementing an evidence-informed framework for interventions to improve the capacity of Canadian EDs to provide high quality care to those who are at greatest risk of experiencing health and health care inequities.

Co-PIs: Colleen Varcoe, Annette Browne, Vicky Bungay, David Byres, and Elder Roberta Price
Years: 2016 - 2021
Funder: CIHR
For more information about this project, please click here.

Completed Projects

SPACES: A Sex Industry Study

This 3-year CIHR funded project aims to examine the physical and organizational contexts and managerial practices within specific off-street sex venues as influential for men and women sex workers' vulnerability for HIV infection. The study brings together a multi-disciplinary team from nursing, population and public health, medicine, sociology, and criminology. Advisory groups comprised of sex venue managers, sex workers, and sex buyers inform all stages of the project. This study brings a unique contribution to addressing health inequities among Canada's sex workers by including both men and women who sell sex as well as those involved in the operations of the industry. Click here for a link to the final report.

PI: Vicky Bungay
Funder: CIHR
For more information about the project, please click here.

Social Network and Information Technologies in the Commercial Sex Industry (Street-to-Screen)

The aim of this 4-year mixed method study is to examine the diverse ways that information and communication technologies mediate how sex workers and their clients develop connections, exchange information, and negotiate the details of the sex for money exchange. This study addresses an important knowledge gap of the interrelationships between safety, security and ICT mediated social relationships. The project is funded through the SSHRC Insights Grant Program.

PI: Vicky Bungay
Funder: SSHRC
For more information about the project, please click here.

Research Ethics Study

The Ethics Project is a four-year research study that examines the ethical and methodological challenges inherent in health research in the field of sex work and health. Research aimed at addressing the many health inequities experienced by people who work in Canada’s sex work industry (e.g., violence, mental illness, and sexually transmitted infections) has grown exponentially in recent years. However, sex workers and researchers have voiced various ethical challenges in carrying out this research, including but not limited to: the exclusion of sex worker sub-populations, obtaining informed consent, and ensuring privacy and confidentiality. Through gaining an understanding of the ethical and methodological concerns that exist, this study led to the development of practical resources for researchers, sex workers, and other stakeholders (such as ethics review boards) to enhance ethical research practice and promote high quality, rigorous research that is necessary to shape health care programming for sex workers and inform pertinent health and social policies.

PI: Vicky Bungay
Funder: CIHR
For more information about the project, please click here.

Publications

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Selected Publications

Varcoe, C., Browne, A., Bungay, V., Wilson, E. Bungay, V. et al. (In Press). Through an equity lens: Illuminating the relationships among social inequities, stigma and discrimination, and patient experiences of Emergency health care. International Journal of Health Services.

Jiao, S., Bungay, V., & Jenkins, E. (2021). Information and communication technologies in commercial sex work : A double-edged sword for occupational health and safety. Social Sciences, 10(1), 23, https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10010023

Gagnon, M., Payne, A., Guta, A., & Bungay, V. (2021). Food engages people, as we know : health care and service providers’ experiences of using food as an incentive in HIV care and support in British Columbia, Canada, AIDS Care: https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2021.2014780

Bungay, V., Guta, A., Varcoe, C., Slemon, A., Manning, E., Comber, S., & Perri, M. (2021). Gaps in health research related to sex work : an analysis of Canadian health research funding. Critical Public Health, https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2021.1987385

Greer, A., Buxton, J., Pauly, B., & Bungay, V. (2021). Organizational support for frontline harm reduction and system navigation work among workers with living and lived experience: Qualitative findings from British Columbia, Canada. Harm Reduction Journal, 18:60 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-021-00507-2

Handlovsky, I., Bungay, V., Oliffe, J., & Johnson, J. (2020) Overcoming adversity: A grounded theory of health management among middle-aged and older gay men. Sociology of Health & Illness. 42(7), 1566-1580. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13145

Greer, A., Bungay, V., Pauly, B., & Buxton, J. (2020). ‘Peer’ work as precarious: A qualitative study of work conditions and experiences of people who use drugs engaged in harm reduction work. International Journal of Drug Policy, 85, 102922. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102922

Ferlatte, O., Oliffe, J.L., Salway, T., Broom, A., Bungay, V. & Rice S.M. (2019). Using photovoice to understand suicidality among gay and bisexual men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(5), 1529-1541. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-1433-6

Bungay, V. & Casey, L. (2019). Chapter 8. Ethical issues in providing care to women engaged in sex work. In Ethical Issues in Women’s Health Care: Practice and Policy, L d’Agincourt-Canning and C. Ells (Eds). Oxford University Press: New York, NY.

Slemon, A., Bungay, V., Jenkins, E., & Brown, H. (2018). Power and resistance: Nursing students' experiences in mental health practicums. Advances in Nursing Science, 41(4), 359-376. doi: 10.1097/ANS.0000000000000221

Jiao, Z. & Bungay, V. (2018). Intersections of stigma, mental health and sex work: How Canadian men engaged in sex work navigate and resist stigma to protect their mental health. Journal of Sex Research, Published ahead of print. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2018.1459446

Handlovsky, I., Bungay, V., Oliffe, J., & Johnson, J. (2018). Developing resilience: Gay men’s response to systemic discrimination. American Journal of Men’s Health, 1-13. doi: 10.1177/1557988318768607

Bungay, V. & Guta, A. (2018) Strategies and challenges in preventing workplace violence against Canadian indoor sex workers. American Journal of Public Health, 108(3): 393-398. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.304241.

Varcoe, C., Browne, A., Ford-Gilboe, M., Dion Stout, M., McKenzie, H., Price, R., Bungay, V., Smye, V., Inyallie, J., Day, L., Khan, K., Heino, A., & Merritt-Gray, M. (2017). Reclaiming Our Spirits: Development, pilot results and study protocol to test the feasibility and efficacy of a health promotion intervention for Indigenous women who have experienced intimate partner violence. Research in Nursing and Health, 40(3), 237-254. doi: 10.1002/nur.21795

Singien, K., Price, M, Bungay, V., & Wong, S. (2016) A retrospective cohort study using the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network data to examine depression in patients with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. CMAJ, DOI: 10.9778/cmajo.20160052.

Manning, E. & Bungay, V. (2016). ‘Business before pleasure’: The golden rule of sex work, payment schedules, and gendered experiences of violence. Published ahead of print. Culture, Health & Sexuality. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2016.1219767

Black, A., Bungay, V., Mackay, M., Balneaves, L., & Garossino, C. (2016). Understanding mentorship in a research training program for point-of-care clinicians. Journal of Nursing Administration, 46(9), 444-448. DOI: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000000373.

Bowen, R. & Bungay, V. (2016). Taint: An examination of the lived experiences of stigma and its’ lingering effects for sex industry experts. Culture, Health and Sexuality. 18(2), 184-197. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2015.1072875

Bungay, V., Oliffe, J., & Atchison, C. (2016). Addressing underrepresentation in sex work research: Reflections on designing a purposeful sampling strategy. Qualitative Health Research, 26(7), 966-978. doi: 10.1177/1049732315613042.

Bungay, V., Masaro, C. & Gilbert, M. (2014). Examining the scope of public health nursing practice in sexually transmitted infection prevention and management: what do nurses do? Journal of Clinical Nursing. 23(21-22), 3274-3785. DOI:10.1111/jocn.12578.

Bungay, V, & Stevenson, J. (2014). Nurse leaders’ experiences of implementing regulatory changes in sexual health nursing practice in British Columbia Canada. Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice, 14(2), 69-78. DOI: 10.1177/1527154413510564.

Bungay, V. (2013). Health care among street-involved women: The justification and perpetuation of inequity. Qualitative Health Research. 23(3), 1016-1026. DOI: 10.1177/1049732313493352

Guta, A. & Bungay, V. (2013). Lessons learned from the Ottawa 20: Reclaiming the ethics review process to advance academic freedom. Aporia. The Nursing Journal, 5(3), 34-38.

Handlovsky, I., Bungay, V., Johnson, J.L., & Phillips, J.C. (2013). The process of safer crack use among women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Qualitative Health Research, 23(4), 450-462. DOI: 10.1177/1049732312469465

Oliffe, J.L., Chabot, C., Knight, R., Davis, W., Bungay, V., & Shoveller, J. (2013). Women on men's sexual health and sexually transmitted infection testing: A gender relations analysis. Sociology of Health and Illness, 35(1), 1-16. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2012.01470.x

Persaud, S., Tzemis, D., Kuo, M., Bungay, V., & Buxton, J. (2013). Controlling chaos: the perceptions of crack cocaine users in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Addiction (2013), 1-9. Published ahead of print at DOI: 10.1155/2013/851840.

Bungay, V., Halpin, M., Halpin, P.F., Johnston, C., & Patrick, D.M. (2012). Violence in the massage parlour industry: Experiences of Canadian-born and immigrant women. Health Care for Women International, 33(3), 262-284. DOI: 10.1080/07399332.2011

Teaching

Supervisor eligibility:

MHLP
MN
MSN – thesis
MSN – non-thesis
PhD

Graduate Supervision