Through his research, Phillips stresses that he’s “trying to highlight for nurses that we have a responsibility to ensure our nursing practices support human rights for all.” He is internationally recognized for his scholarship at the intersection of nursing and human rights law and has a special interest in equitable access to health care for members of the 2S LGBTQAI+ community and people living with HIV/AIDS.
Phillips was inspired to study nursing in the early 1990s after witnessing the compassion of a hospice nurse caring for a friend who was dying of AIDS complications. This was at a time before significant improvements in antiretroviral therapies, which changed HIV from a death sentence to a manageable chronic illness. Since then, he has worked as a registered nurse in Canada and in his native United States, where he specialized in psychiatric and mental health care and is certified in HIV/AIDS nursing. As Phillips furthered his studies and started his academic career, so grew his interest in “the ecosocial context of health as a human right” and the role of nurses as agents of change.
Health equity for the 2S LGBTQAI+ community
Much of Phillips’ current work focuses on informing public policy, shaping “how governments, educators and health systems respond to the needs of marginalized people.” As vice-chair of the LGBTQ+ Health Expert Panel for the American Academy of Nursing, he contributed to a recently published consensus paper on advancing equitable health policy with LGBTQ+ people. The researchers influenced amendments to the American Nurses Association’s 2025 code of ethics to expressly commit “to equity, social justice, and eliminating health disparities affecting marginalized and socially disadvantaged or disempowered communities and groups, including LGBTQ+ people.”
Phillips notes that the Canadian nursing code of ethics, which was also amended in 2025, has long been more progressive than the American code with respect to sex and gender minority populations. “The Canadian code of ethics is quite comprehensive from a universal human rights perspective,” he says. “It also is much more aligned with the concepts of primary health care and universal health coverage. That really has a lot more to do with our society’s desire to make sure that everyone has access to at least a minimal level of health, which is a major challenge in the U.S.”
“As nurses, we have a responsibility to ensure our practices support human rights for all.”
J. Craig Phillips
— Professor in the School of Nursing
A landmark study with HIV-positive mothers
A study on infant feeding practices among Black mothers living with HIV, which Phillips completed in 2022 with Professor Josephine Etowa of the School of Nursing and a team of researchers, has perhaps had the most direct impact on shaping policy. It inspired the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to change its guidelines for HIV-positive mothers in 2023. Prior to the changes, HIV-positive women were prohibited from chestfeeding their infants to prevent the vertical transmission of HIV. The new guidelines encourage mothers to work with their health-care providers to choose the right feeding approach (exclusive chest or formula feeding) for them, depending on their viral load and through effective management of their illness.
Phillips and the research team surveyed 690 HIV-positive mothers in Ottawa, Miami (Florida) and Port Harcourt (Nigeria) to understand what approach they chose to feed their babies and what influenced their choices. Their study was cited in the CDC’s 2023 guidelines and, this past October, in the British guidelines for managing HIV in pregnancy and postpartum.
While Phillips carries out his advocacy work primarily through the publication of articles and papers, his involvement with various nursing organizations also plays a role. He is a fellow of both the American Academy of Nursing and the Canadian Academy of Nursing. Most recently he has worked with the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing to “advocate for more inclusive treatment of nursing students.”
He collaborated with a team of experts to draft guidelines to promote equitable learning environments for 2S LGBTQAI+ nursing students across Canada. Published this year, the report points out that these students are not only at a higher risk of developing health-related issues, but also often face inequities in health care, which increases this risk.
Stigma and discrimination are the main barriers to accessing health care for members of the 2S LGBTQAI+ community and people living with HIV, says Phillips. “I think that’s consistent across the sex and gender minority populations that I work with. That’s why it’s critically important that we have accurate and unbiased information. We need to create opportunities for safe and open dialogue with folks from marginalized groups.” It’s a crucial step toward upholding health as a human right for everyone.