Investigating the HIV/AIDS Disparity with Cultural Geography and Public Health Methods

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在北卡罗莱纳大学教堂山分校的Tonia Poteat博士的赞助下，该博士后奖学金奖支持研究农村艾滋病毒/艾滋病差异的文化地理学的早期职业科学家。除了临床描述之外，对与健康差异相关的空间和文化特征的了解还不够。为了解决这个问题，主要的艾滋病毒/艾滋病差异研究人员呼吁采用叙事和以社区为中心的方法。本项目采用这些方法来考虑在社区中协商艾滋病毒/艾滋病差异的方式。通过关注叙事，该项目调查了与卫生不平等有关的农村社区的轮廓和功能。该项目旨在提供重要的见解，了解口述历史如何将艾滋病对美国社区和社会经验的影响背景化并调动空间知识。它采用(1)研究回顾，(2)口述历史访谈和(3)实地观察。研究综述包括权衡先前发表的创意写作和人文研究文献如何提供类似于口述历史的叙述，传递个人和社区对艾滋病毒/艾滋病差距的反应。这种研究审查的目的是为公共卫生方法提供信息，并从文化角度增进对艾滋病毒/艾滋病差异的理解。该项目的实地工作包括收集一系列口述历史访谈，并进行实地观察，以衡量人文叙事作为主要数据的相关潜力。访谈的重点是1980年代至今艾滋病的影响如何改变了个人与农村社区的关系以及集体社会环境的形成方式。这项研究最终将促进从受艾滋病影响的人的角度对艾滋病差异的社会领域的更好理解，从而促进更有针对性的地方干预。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Tonia Poteat at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist researching the cultural geography of rural HIV/AIDS disparities. Not enough is yet known about spatial and cultural identities in relation to health disparities beyond clinical descriptors. To address this issue, leading HIV/AIDS disparity researchers call for work that employs narrative and community-focused approaches. This project employs such approaches to consider the ways HIV/AIDS disparities are negotiated in communities. By focusing on narratives, this project investigates the contours and functions of rural communities related to health inequity. This project aims to provide critical insight into how oral histories contextualize and mobilize spatial knowledge of HIV/AIDS' impact on the community and social experiences in the United States. It uses (1) research review, (2) oral history interviewing, and (3) field observation. Research review involves weighing how previously published literature in the creative writing and humanistic studies offer narratives similar to oral history that relay personal and community responses to HIV/AIDS disparity. Such research review is designed to inform public health methodology and improve understandings of HIV/AIDS disparity in cultural terms. Fieldwork for the project involves collecting a series of oral history interviews and conducting field observations to weigh the pertinent potential of humanistic narratives as primary data. In particular, interviews focus on how the impact of HIV/AIDS from the 1980s to now has altered individual's relationships to their rural communities as well as the ways collective social environments have formed. This study will ultimately foster improved understandings of the social terrain of HIV disparity from the points-of-views of those affected by it in order to potentiate more catered, place-specific interventions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.